After two years of bureaucratic delays and disruption by the Covid-19 pandemic, the 80kw Remote Power Unit for Lebayango is on site and engineers will soon rig up the solar panels that will feed the grid that has been built by the government run Rural Electrification Agency.

Racing to beat the 60pc electrification target by 2030, the Ugandan government with the support of the European Union and the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation BMZ, have turned to solar-mini-grids to deliver commercially productive electricity to isolated communities. Lebayango and the other 24 villages in Lamwo district as well as another 15 in Isingiro district in southern Uganda, qualify for the intervention because they are not likely to get connected to the national grid in the next ten to twenty years.

The USD4 million project with a 60pc subsidy component, is expected to serve between 2300 and 3000 users in Lamwo where the 25 mini-grids will have a combined generation capacity of 1Mw.

Read more: 256 Business News