By John Ricardo Munyegera
KAMPALA, Uganda – Wednesday 4th May 2016: Many tourists’ attraction sites in Uganda are slowly but steadily being destroyed in the name of economic development. A lot now has been done on the River Nile. Many dams or power stations so far have been and are being constructed on the once beautiful river in the Great Lakes region of Africa.
Gone are the days when we used to see the waterfalls in the region of Busoga. It was because of Kiyira Dam that Bujagali falls were sacrificed. Does the Kiyira power project function really as estimated? Bitter truth is No. In a short distance of not less than 50 Kilometers; Isimba dam is also put in place leave alone the slowing down of the speed of the river waters. Another lingering question here is; is such development sustainable? The answer lies in the line of poor analytical research rendered that everything is done shoddily as if Uganda is migrating or there’s no tomorrow.
Recently, the construction of the Karuma dam had its own share of challenges especially when the dam under construction developed visible cracks! It was a sad story and indeed kept trending on social media. However, that’s not my point of discussion as of now. My major concern today is about the established dams or power stations and how effective have these been particularly on the River Nile. Are they a total failure? Is it an argument of poor planning? Is it a case of wrong perception of ideas or basically what went wrong with power generation in Uganda? Let’s try to understand at the start these words; run of the river, water reservoir and others.
“Run-of-the-river” is a type of hydroelectric generation plant whereby little or no water storage is provided. Run-of-the-river power plants may have no water storage at all or a limited amount of storage, in which case the storage reservoir is referred to as pondage. River Nile is the only run of the river source for all the power stations. This therefore adds to the argument that they depend on the speed of the river then. The main problem here is that, based on the reckoning fears of climate change, yet river Nile draws its waters from Lake Victoria; are these power stations sustainable?
Another issue worthy to note is the plant. A plant without pondage has no water storage and is, therefore, subject to seasonal river flows. Many power stations have nothing like this either way. Thus, the plant will operate as an intermittent energy source while a plant with pondage can regulate the water flow at all times and can serve as a peaking power plant or base load power plant. In the case of River Nile, a plant is similar to a water reservoir. The lake therefore doubles at once.
A “Water reservoir” is a storage space for water. A reservoir usually means an enlarged natural or artificial lake, storage pond or impoundment created using a dam or lock to store water. Water reservoirs can be created by controlling a stream that drains an existing body of water. This therefore gives the fact that, Lake Victoria is the reservoir for Nalubaale, Kiyira, Bujagali, and Isimba power stations. Is this viable in the space of such a shorter distance of the river; less than 40 km from the source?
The power station is located at Isimba; on Victoria Nile about 40 km downstream of Bujagali hydropower station and 10 km downstream of Kalagala offset area. About 50 km downstream of the source of Victoria Nile is found Isimba Falls after which the proposed project (Isimba HPP), which will be in the vicinity of these falls, is named; according to the feasibility report from the ministry of energy. Therefore, according to that report, can the river speed handle this and produce the 183.2MW?
The construction of both Karuma and Isimba dams will add to the electricity grid 783 megawatts (Karuma 600, and Isimba 183) respectively. Ugandans are therefore expected to consume all that plus the existing one.
The clauses of power generation need to be looked at clearly as it dents the government more than the companies helping in construction and transmission. In simplicity call it the supply chain of demand. Most of the power purchasing agreements have a vital clause! This is the guarantee from the government that it has to “consume all” the power supplied. Therefore, the moment the government is short of that, and then it must have to pay for power generated which’s not actually consumed by Ugandans. Hate me for this but it might be the worst blunder for the government; even the chief financiers of these projects and coffers might question and stop the funding. The stake at which these dams’ construction ventures dents the government and the Ugandans; directly affects the economy negatively.
Mythical megawatts estimations: Yes, the government is soon inaugurating the proposed construction of Ayago which will produce 600 megawatts; but the existing ones have a lot of unanswered questions. These are only estimates but like the earlier experiences; will these power stations produce those estimated megawatts?
The underestimation of the Lake Victoria or Nalubaale hydrology which is the main output (water reservoir) of the river (Nile) were all these dams are constructed is apparently another precursor. The wrong estimations always play a significant role here. Based on the design information as confirmed by an expert in water resources; Engineer Sembera Simon; Bujaggali was designed and constructed to produce 250 megawatts; Nalubaale 180 megawatts and Kiyira 200 megawatts respectively. These dams are in reality a design disaster to both the river and the dam even though many government officials argue that; these are necessary investments for the economic prosperity of our society. To me, these are just pure illusions.
The publication of the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) in 2007 reported that; “The Bujagali dam was constantly hyped that it will generate the projected and designed capacity supply of 250MW; but in reality it will not. The maximum amount of electricity it can generate under the current and future hydrological conditions is 121MW based on a natural run-of-the-river flows and Lake Victoria water elevations.” Indeed they were right on this; the dam has failed to reach the hyped 250MW.
These power stations do not produce the given megawatts. According to recent reports, Bujaggali dam is making less than 160 megawatts; Nalubaale less than 120 megawatts and Kiyira also at less than 170 megawatts. The cynically but true reason for this is because of the wrong design and wrong megawatts estimations of the water speed from Lake Victoria since this is the only water reservoir.
The dams therefore don’t get enough water as expected. Besides that, let me labour to explain briefly river Nile. In Uganda, River Nile is in the youthful stage. The water seems to be running a great speed but the major dilemma is that, there are close to five projects in the names of Owen Falls, Kiyira, Bujaggali, Isimba and Agago. These can be viable for power generation but the distance between them cannot hold them based on the river run off.
One shocking fact as well for both Nalubale and Kiyira power projects is that Tackoradi never mentioned the agreed release of the waters out of Lake Victoria per second. There’s major trading of deceit in these projects against the natural setting and flow of the water.
Distance between the power stations and speed of the river: Let’s jump on the distance between these dam projects! Both Bujaggali and Isimba now follow suit here. They’re both negatively affected and I strongly doubt whether Isimba will make the illusional 183.2 megawatts. By the way, do not forget the proposed Kalagala dam as well. Even with the fact that there was any indemnity agreement which was supposed to guide and never think of the construction of Kalagala project; the government is adamantly going ahead with plans of construction. As if that’s not enough; even the 28km retaining wall can literally submerge Kalagala. The Nile waves too can do it naturally. It’s that worthless to spend all that money and end up with such massive projects which are not sustainable.
The national electricity grid figures stands at 14%. 86% of Ugandans have no access to the national grid. Be that as it may, I think the power issue is still a complex one. It rests more on generation than it does on transmission. As government swallows loans and pumps resources in more dam’s construction, it has to be considered that it has to invest commensurate resources in transmission, lest it faces the worst challenges.
In most cases as indicated above; the expected megawatts (MW) are never attained. Indeed, these are always estimates and it just ends there! No one asks why a power station expected to produce over 250MW, ends up producing less than that and on top of that; they construct another one in the same location. What you must understand as well is the case of the construction costs. For these power stations (even the two proposed) the estimated cost is over US$6.5 billion. The problem still is that; these projects even though not giving Ugandans the power they urgently need in our daily life; the money is being borrowed from mostly Exim Bank from China with a time-lag of about 15 years at 2% interest rate and 4% per annum. It’s quite confusing as to why there are always feasibility study reports with serious ambiguities and loopholes. Even though we strive for economic prosperity; the future in my opinion if nothing is done, it’s still blind.
Insofar, Ripon falls, Bujagali falls, Karuma falls, Ayago falls, Kiyira falls and Isimba falls are now facing the wrath of human destruction due to the consolations of power stations there; other electricity or energy sources must be clearly be looked at. Hydro-electricity is not the only solution to Uganda’s power generation problems. Thermal and solar power can be a handy solution to this. The functioning thermal power stations are so accurate other than the wrong estimations of each of the dams planted on River Nile. Lastly, what happened to Uganda solar power stations 1, 2, 3, and 4? Each was to produce 125MW and was supposed to be finished in 2016. May be answers will come another day.