28
Mar

Kigali, March 28, 2019 - Hon. Claver GATETE, Minister of Infrastructure, officially inaugurated Nzove and Gahanga substations, the new facilities developed to supply power to Kigali City. The substations were developed under the support of European Union to improve the operational efficiency on the national grid.

Rwanda's energy sector continues to develop in all chain of power supply, from electricity generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure. The government's prime objective is to have universal access to electricity by 2024. Today, about 51% of Rwandan households have access to electricity as of February 2019 - (37% grid; 14% off- grid) while the installed generation capacity is 221.1MW. 

In March 2015, the Government of Rwanda signed a € 23 million financing agreement with the European Union to be used as part of a project and improve the quality of power supply to the Kigali city as well as reducing the losses level from 23% in 2013 with an annual goal of 1% reduction target. 

The project intended to build a 27 km long transmission line (110kV) linking Jabana, Mount Kigali and Gahanga, upgrade Mount Kigali, Jabana and Birembo substations as well as construction of two new substations, Nzove and Gahanga, inaugurated today. The project is also implementing installation of 8,000 smart meters to quantify losses and reactive power compensators to improve on the quality of voltage and reduce technical losses. 

Currently, Nzove Substation, built under same financing is operational and it stabilized power supply in Nyabugogo and surrounding areas especially Nzove Water Treatment Plant, SKOL Brewery and a part of Shyorongi agglomeration. 

For Gahanga Substation, a part of Kicukiro supplied by Gasogi feeder (from Gikondo) was transferred to this substation to reduce loading on Gasogi. The second feeder supplies Agakiriro/Kicukiro and Master Steel Factory.

The Minister of Infrastructure, Claver GATETE appreciated the support provided by the European Union to improve the electricity transmission and distribution network in Rwanda.   

 “The European Union has supported our Government programs. We are now seeing improvement in the reliability of the power supplied in the City of Kigali, we hope for continuous power stability as well as loss reduction as part of government’s strategic plan “He added”.

The Chief Executive Officer of REG, Eng. Ron Weiss said that this 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 have been able to reduce it to 19.1% in the last financial year (2017-2018). This year, our goal is to reduce this leakage by 1%, thanks to such projects strengthening our distribution network.” he said.