The Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) has launched a nationwide inspection of electricity infrastructure, with officials recently visiting the Entebbe substation as part of the exercise.
The inspections aim to assess the viability and challenges faced by Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Limited (UEDCL), which took over operations from Umeme.
According to Julius Wandera, ERA’s Director of Consumer Affairs, the inspections will help understand UEDCL’s operational challenges on the ground.
“We are doing this to try to understand the extent to which our colleagues at UEDCL have moved from the time they took over the network not from a desk report point of view, but from a field point of view,” he explained.
Wandera noted that there were “teething problems” when UEDCL took over, partly because Umeme had reduced maintenance for about four months before the transition in April. “We expect that they should be handling the remedial challenges if there are any,” he added.
During the visit to Entebbe substation, Wandera observed that the substation has an unused capacity of 80 MVA, positioning it to accommodate additional electrical load in the areas it serves.
“This substation here has got the capacity to feed the areas it’s supposed to and it retains a capacity of 80 MVA to be precise right now. That means that it is not consumed totally at all,” he said.
He added that the available capacity implies the substation can support more infrastructure development and added load without strain. “So we can still add on load. We can have more infrastructure coming on board and the load is added and the substation will still handle it,” he noted.
Eng Judith Sengendo Nayiga, ERA’s Director of Technical Regulation, highlighted efforts toward smarter grids and systems for real-time monitoring and feedback.
“Through having systems that are intelligent, we’ll be able to get to where we want,” she said, noting progression from Umeme’s established base.
The ERA officials urged the public to report issues and refrain from celebrating network vandalism.
“Do not celebrate a vandal,” Wandera stressed, emphasizing citizens’ responsibility to curb such acts causing outages. Teams are distributed across Uganda, covering Kampala, West, East, and North, to ensure a comprehensive assessment of electricity infrastructure.