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Why Tanzania struggles with outages despite generating excess electricity
What you need to know:
- Many Tanzanians point fingers at the recently launched standard gauge railway electric train, but the authorities say the frequent blackouts stem from a different challenge.
Tanzania’s electricity generation has nearly doubled over the last decade, and investments in transmission have now boosted supply of high-voltage power throughout the country, but it continues to struggle with blackouts daily, especially in Dar es Salaam, its largest city.
The steady growth of the country’s installed capacity and electricity generation—to the extent of considering exports to Kenya, Zambia and Ethiopia—has not translated to a more stable supply to the locals.
Many Tanzanians point fingers at the recently launched standard gauge railway electric train, but the authorities say the frequent blackouts stem from a different challenge.
“The frequent blackouts are due to very old distribution infrastructure, which makes it difficult to maintain a stable flow of electricity at all times,” said a senior official at the Tanzania Electricity Supply Company (Tanesco). “It has nothing to do with the train. In fact, the train consumes just about 60MW (megawatts) of electricity at any given time. That’s too little to significantly disrupt electricity supply.”
Meanwhile, a series of investments from development finance institutions and the government have boosted Tanzania’s electricity generation to record levels, elevating its contribution to the East African power pool.
Over the last decade, the country’s national generation of electricity has risen from a total of 6,378 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in 2015 to 10,266 GWh in 2023, a near double increment in just eight years.
Latest data by the National Bureau of Statistics shows that in the first nine months of last year, generation rose 12 percent to 8,637 GWh, up from the 7,716 GWh recorded in 2023.
But energy consumption per capita has remained below 0.2 MWh every year, and the overall energy access gap in the country is still less than 50 percent, based on the latest estimates by the International Energy Agency.
With the increased generation, the Backbone Transmission Investment Project (BTIP) has boosted transmission and interconnection with neighbouring Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, and Zambia is still in the works.
The project is funded by the African Development Bank, World Bank, Japan International Corporation Agency, Exim Bank of Korea, European Investment Bank, and the Tanzanian government.
It facilitated the construction of transmission lines from the generation-heavy southern parts of the country through to the north and onwards to Kenya, through which Tanzania will be exporting energy to Ethiopia.
Interconnection
Pakaya Mtamakaya, the BTIP project manager, told a media briefing last Sunday that with the interconnection of the Tanzanian grid with Kenya’s, which was completed last month, Tanzania’s energy exports to Nairobi and Addis Ababa are yet to rise.
“We are currently finalising the contracts with Ethiopia that will determine the tariffs and modalities of how to share the electricity, but the grids are already connected and we turned it on last month,” he said.
But while Tanesco is planning on increasing its energy exports to other countries in the region, millions of Tanzanians are still without access and those with access continue to struggle with persistent blackouts.
Tanzanian energy minister Doto Biteko said despite the milestones, the country still needs more investments to boost its infrastructure to increase both access and connectivity.
“While we’re humbled by this modest progress so far, our vast geography and demography suggests that we still require more investments in the energy sector,” he said at the Mission300 Africa Energy Summit in Dar es Salaam last week.
