Karuma Hydro Power Plant is an Uganda flagship project financed by the Export Import Bank (EXIM) of China. The EXIM bank is financing 85 percent of the project while the rest in funded by the Ugandan government. The cost of the project is about 1.7 billion U.S. dollars.
The plant is critical in addressing the country’s increasing electricity demand in efforts to fast track industrialization. Inadequate power supply is one of the key bottlenecks to fast tracking Uganda’s economic development.
According to the government, Karuma will generate electricity in a phased manner, starting with the already completed turbines until the final turbine, leading to an installed capacity of 600 MW.
Sinohydro is also in charge of the Karuma Interconnection Project, which will evacuate power from the plant. There are three transmission lines that will be leaving the power plant heading to different directions.
According to Sinohydro’s progress report, work was delayed due to COVID19 measures, but overall work has reached 94.5 percent completion. Most of the tower erection and stringing works have been done, except in a few places where there has been a challenge of accessing the way. This, according to Sinohydro has led to delays in completing the works.
Xinhua news release, November 14, 2020
