Uganda, on Wednesday, connected the 600 Megawatts Karuma Hydropower Plant to the country’s national grid, energynewsafrica.com can report.

This means more power is now available for Ugandans.

The Karuma Hydropower Plant is built on the Nile River downstream of the Kyoga Lake in Kyandongo district, 270km from Kampala, the capital of Uganda.

The US$1.7 billion project was started in 2013 and was expected to be completed by the end of 2018. However, the project delayed due to some issues.

The project was executed by the Uganda Electricity Generation Company (UEGCL) with Sinohydro, a hydropower and construction company in China, as the main contractor.

In a tweet, Dr Harrison E. Mutikanga wrote “Commissioning the 600MW Karuma HPP is one of our top priorities this year and today we registered a big milestone.

“Unit #1 has successfully synchronised to the national grid. A big thank you to the teams that worked tirelessly towards this achievement,” he concluded.

A tweet by UEGCL also read: “History! Unit #1 of 6 at the 600MW Karuma HPP has successfully been synchronised to the national grid for the first time today at 16:14 Hrs. Each unit at Karuma HPP will generate 100 megawatts.

“This milestone marks the start of power generation at the soon to be commissioned plant,” the tweet concluded.

 

Source: https://energynewsafrica.com