The Uganda Energy Credit Capitalisation Company (UECCC) has approved 92 Energy Service Companies to drive its results-based financing price subsidy programme.
UECCC, a government-owned company tasked with catalysing financing for renewable projects and increasing access to clean and modern energy services, will, through the programme, provide targeted subsidies to enable the companies reduce the market price of clean energy technologies.
The subsidies are passed directly to end-users at the point of purchase, significantly lowering upfront costs and accelerating adoption.
Mr Roy Nyamutale Baguma, the UECCC managing director, says the objective of the pre-selection is to ensure that only companies that supply quality products certified by Uganda National Bureau of Standards participate in the programme.
‘We have so far approved 92 companies to participate, most of them have a wide outreach and are also incentivised to address market-entry barriers and make sales possible in remote, underserved areas, including refugee settlements and refugee host districts,’ he said, noting that solar lighting prices have been discounted by 50 percent.
He also disclosed that solar systems with a minimum of two lights have been reduced by 40 percent, ethanol cook stoves by 40 percent, biogas digesters by 30 percent, liquefied petroleum gas by 40 percent, solar-cook stoves by 40 percent, improved biomass stoves by 50 percent, and electric pressure cookers by 50 percent.
The programme also provides discounts for productive uses of energy equipment such as water pumping, irrigation, refrigeration and cooling, water heating, and grain milling, all of which have been reduced by 60 percent.
To benefit from the programme, UECCC notes, beneficiaries must present their national identity card for record purposes and pay the discounted price for the product chosen.
Mr Brian Mugabe, the Sun King, the brand associate, one of the selected Energy Service Companies, said they have been facilitated by government to extend solar to Ugandans at lower prices through the results-based financing subsidy programme.
‘We received the Results-Based Financing price subsidy programme from UECCC to reduce prices, and as we did that, we were able to supplement through our ‘Easy Buy’ programme, whereby the price is low, and people can also be able to pay in instalments,’ he said.
UECCC held a regional activation of the programme in Hoima City to raise awareness and amplify key messages around affordable clean energy solutions available under the Electricity Access Scale-Up Project, a government initiative supported by the World Bank.