New Mount Kigali Substation to reduce power losses

On the 18th October 2018, Hon. Claver GATETE, Minister of Infrastructure together with Stefano Manservisi, the European Commission’s Director General for International Cooperation and Development, inaugurated yesterday the new Mount Kigali Power Substation which is part of the Grid Loss Reduction Project funded by the European Union. Sustainable energy is a priority area under the European Union’s partnership with Rwanda. In March 2015, the Government of Rwanda signed with the European Union a financing agreement of €23m for Grid Loss Reduction project which was aligned to REG targets to reduce power losses from 23% in 2013 with an annual 1% loss reduction target. The substation was upgraded with two transformers of 20MVA each, replacing the old 10 MVA transformers, which could not cope with the demand during peak hours, sometimes leading to power outages. The substation supplies electricity in Nyamirambo, City of Kigali and in neighboring districts of Bugesera, Kamonyi and big parts of Muhanga District. Speaking during the inauguration ceremony, Hon. Claver GATETE appreciated the support provided by the European Union to improve the electricity distribution network in Rwanda. He said “We are now seeing improvement in the reliability of the power supplied in the city of Kigali.” The Minister said also that the energy sector continues to grow in electricity generation, transmission and distribution to ensure that the targeted universal access by 2024 is attained. He mentioned that to achieve this, requires strong partnerships with different stakeholders. According to Stefano Manservisi, the Director General of the European Commission for International Cooperation and Development, power supply is one of the crucial sectors they are focusing on their support to the Government of Rwanda’s development journey. He is confident that the support provided by European Union enabled the Government of Rwanda to achieve important results in the energy sector especially in terms of connectivity, quality and renewable energy. The Chief Executive Officer of REG, Eng. Ron Weiss said that the project has tremendously improved reliability and quality of power supply in the Kigali City. “There is a big improvement in terms of power loss reduction. During the 2016-2017 financial year, we had a power loss of 21.1% and we’ve been able to reduce it to 19.6% in the last financial year. This year we aim to further reduce at least by 1% to reach 18.6% thanks to such projects strengthening our distribution network.” he said. Rwanda’s energy sector continues to grow in electricity generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure and the main reasons for growth is the government targets to have universal electricity access by 2024. Today, 46.46% (35% on grid and 11.46% off grid) of all households in Rwanda have access to electricity while the installed generation capacity is 218 MW.