Overview of hydropower resources and development in Uganda

Abbreviations: NPA: National Planning Authority; SHP: Small Hydropower plant; UBOS: Uganda Bureau of Statistics; IRENA: International Renewable Energy Agency; IHA: The International Hydropower Association; IEA: International Energy Agency; ERA: Electricity Regulatory Authority; LHP: Large Hydropower plant; MEMD: Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development; OPEX: Operation and Maintenance Expenses; IPPs: Independent Power Plants; DAP: Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways; PPPs: Public Private Partnerships; AA: Action Agenda; SE4ALL: Sustainable Energy for All; ADB: African Development Bank; DRC: Democratic Republic of Congo; NEMA: National Environment Management Authority; HYPSO: Hydropower solutions for developing and emerging countries; Mtoe: Million tonnes of oil equivalent

1.   Introduction

1.1.   Background

Generation, supply and use of electricity remains critical for Uganda to attain economic growth and socio-economic transformation of its growing population. Uganda is endowed with various electricity generating resources such as biomass, solar, geothermal, peat and fossil fuels, which are distributed throughout the country. Despite this, Uganda has not been able to provide reliable and cost-effective electricity to meet the demand of its growing population and economy. Access to electricity remains low (at 28% in 2019) compared with the sub-Saharan Africa average of 42% ^[1]. Consumption of electricity in Uganda (of 215 kWh per capita per year, which is less than half that of the sub-Saharan African average of 552 kWh) is among the lowest in the world ^[2].

Therefore, limited access and high cost of electricity has affected delivery of social services, constrained the development of small-scale industrial and commercial enterprises and disillusioned larger-scale industrial and commercial investment in the country. Uganda's Vision 2040 lays out the broad policy directives to improve electricity access and transform Uganda to a modern and prosperous country within the next 20 years ^[3] It aims to achieve an electricity access target of 80% by 2040. Furthermore, Uganda's National Development Plan (NDP II) highlights the urgent need to increase access and usage of electricity through investments in least cost power generation, promotion of renewable energy and energy efficiency as well as development and expansion of associated transmission and distribution infrastructure ^[4]. Hence, NDP III aims at making the generated energy more available to households and businesses ^[1]. Currently, energy mix in Uganda consists of 88% biomass resource (mainly derived from charcoal and firewood), 10% petroleum products (mainly use in transportation sector) and 2% electricity (dominated by hydropower generation) ^[5,6].

Cumulative installed power capacity increased from about 609.4 MW in 2011 to 1268.9 MW by the end of 2020, with an average of 65.95 MW increment per year from 2011 to 2020 ^[7]. The contribution of hydropower to installed capacity increased from 71.0% (in 20211) to 79.7% (2020) while that of solar energy (solar PV) increased from 0% in 2011 to 4.8% in 2020. However, contribution from both thermal (by Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO)) and cogeneration decreased between 2011 and 2020. With a projected national population of about 41.6 million in 2020 ^[8], power intensity in Uganda at the end of 2020 was 30.5 W/capita, hence Uganda could be considered as an energy poor country. With the government's power development plan, it is expected that hydropower will continue to dominate electricity generation in Uganda in the foreseeable future. In Uganda, hydropower is a major source of electricity, generating over 4911 GWh of electricity in 2019 ^[9] through both large hydropower plants (LHPs) and small hydropower plants (SHPs). In terms of number of power plants, there are currently 28 SHPS and 6 LHPs in operation in Uganda (see Table 3 and Table 4 for more information on these power plants).

1.2.   Global hydropower development

Among the renewable energy resources, hydropower is the most matured technology and widely used globally. According to ^[7], hydropower accounted for 45.6% (1331.9 GW) of the global cumulative installed power capacity from renewable energy resources at the end of 2020, while wind energy, solar energy, bioenergy, and geothermal energy contributed 25.1%, 24.4%, 4.3% and 0.5%, respectively. The Asia region accounted for 42.6% (or 566.7 GW), while the Africa region accounted for 2.8% (or 37.3 GW) of global installed hydropower. Furthermore, Eurasia, Europe, North America, and South America respectively, contributed 6.7%, 16.7%, 14.8% and 13.4%. In terms of installed capacity, Ethiopia, with a capacity of 4074 MW, is the first ranked country, while Uganda ranked 13th in hydropower development in Africa (see Table 1). Overall, the thirteen top ranked countries accounted for 31.62 GW (81.9%) of the hydropower installed capacity in the continent in 2020.

1.3.   Purpose of this study

Several hydropower plants have been constructed and more are expected to be constructed in the future as Uganda aims at significantly improving electricity access by 2040. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to review hydropower resources in Uganda with the goal of highlighting the status and the challenges facing its development. Relative to similar studies which focused on the renewable energy resources (such as ^[10]) and wind energy (such as ^[11]), this study presents comprehensive and updated status of hydropower projects specifically (operational, under-construction, proposed and granted licence not yet constructed) in Uganda. This paper is guided by the following specific objectives: (i) examine the available renewable energy resources in Uganda, (ii) identify the technologies used in the hydropower production in Uganda, (iii) identify the barriers to the development of hydropower resources in Uganda, and (iv) analyze the present energy related policies and how they address the challenges of hydropower resource exploitation in Uganda.

The rest of the paper is structured as follows: section 2 provides a brief approach employed in the paper; in section 3, overview of energy resources in Uganda and status of hydropower projects are presented, while in section 4 brief information about hydro power technology is presented. section 5 and section 6 respectively discussed main challenges facing hydropower development in Uganda and suggested solution ways to address these challenges. in section 7, provide brief discussion and conclusion on the work.

2.   Research approach

The study adopted a semi-systematic review approach to highlight the overview of hydropower development overtime in Uganda, and identify challenges facing its development in this country. Relevant scientific and government documents related to hydropower projects in Uganda that are available in public domain are identified and reviewed. Furthermore, additional information is sought from the Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) of Uganda. Despite the useful information provided in this study, the limitations of the review approach used include challenges in access to recent and up to date (most public data are made available about 2 years lag) as well as accuracy of published data partly due to the less willingness of public agencies and power companies to share so-called 'confidential data'.

3.   Overview of energy resources and water resource in Uganda

3.1.   Energy resources

Uganda is a land locked country that is endowed with renewable and non-renewable energy resources. The renewable energy resources in Uganda include biomass (firewood, charcoal, and cogeneration resources (such as sugarcane), hydropower (water) resource, solar energy, geothermal energy, and wind energy resources. The non-renewable energy resources include crude oil, peat, and nuclear energy. Table 2 shows the renewable and non-renewable potential in Uganda. As shown in Table 2, the minimum renewable power potential in Uganda is estimated to stand at 12700 MW. According to Government of Uganda' Vision 2040 program ^[13], hydropower, solar PV, geothermal energy, and cogeneration (biomass) are expected to contribute 35.4%, 39.4%, 11.8% and 13.3%, respectively to renewable energy based-electricity power generation by 2040. It should be noted that wind energy potential has not been exploited partly due to lack of adequate wind energy resource assessment activities to generate reliable and accurate wind energy data, and that wind energy resource is overshadowed by the vast solar renewable energy potential available in almost all areas in Uganda ^[10,11].

3.2.   Water resource and hydropower potential

Uganda is endowed with water bodies, which are estimated at 66 km³/year, which is equivalent to about 1586.5 m³/person per year (using Uganda's population of about 41.6 million ^[8]. Major water bodies in the country are Lake Victoria, Lake Kyoga, Lake Albert, Lake George, and Lake Edward while major rivers are the Nile, Ruizi, Katonga, Kafu, Mpologoma and Aswa. The locations of these lakes and rivers are shown in Figure 1 and Table 3, respectively. A recent study has indicated that hydropower potential is about 4,137 MW in this country ^[14], with about 2000 MW concentrated on the Nile River, while the rest are scattered across the country ^[15]. However, based on the Government of Uganda Vision 2040 document target on power generation, it is reasonable to assume that hydropower potential in Uganda is over 4500 MW (as shown in Table 2).

3.2.1.   Large-scale hydropower (LHP)

In Uganda, large hydropower (LHP) is defined as hydropower plants with installed capacity of over 20 MW ^[14,17]. As at the end of December 2020, large-scale hydropower plants contributed 67.4% (855 MW) of 1268.8 MW installed power capacity in the country, and 84.6% of the total hydropower installations in Uganda ^[18]. Table 4 presents information about operational, under construction and proposed large hydropower plants in Uganda. Therefore, if the proposed and under construction large-scale hydropower (LHP) plants are completed as indicated, the installed LHP would be 2460 MW by end of 2025.

3.2.2.   Small-scale hydro power (SHP) plants

In Uganda, small hydropower (SHP) is generally defined as hydropower plants with installed capacity of up to 20 MW ^[14,17]. Unlike large-scale hydropower, the small and medium hydro sites are not located on the Nile, they are mainly located in the Western and the Eastern regions of the country, which are hilly and mountainous. About 64 potential small hydropower sites have been identified on the rivers in these regions. Thirty (30) of these sites have been developed (see Table 5). At the end of 2020, small-scale hydropower contributed 155.7 MW to overall installed power in Uganda.

3.2.3.   Performance of hydropower plants in Uganda

In general, electricity generation is traditionally and still dominated by hydropower in Uganda. It is evidenced in Figure 2, which presents a recent trend in total electricity generated by power plants. It can be deduced from Figure 2 that total electricity generated by all the power plants increased from about 3534.7 GWh in 2016 to 4411.6 GWh in 2020, which is mainly due to increase in installed power capacity from 905 MW in 2016 to 1268.9 MW in 2020. The additional capacities are mainly from Isimba and Achwa 2 hydropower plants (total installed capacity of 225 MW) and commissioning of 4 solar Photovoltaic power plants (with total capacity of 50.8 MW). Over these five years, on average, hydropower plants contributed about 90.6% electricity to the national utility grid, which is shared among the large hydropower plants (80.7%) and small hydropower plants (9.9%).

However, despite this increment in hydropower plants (both in terms of cumulative installed capacity and total electricity produced), the capacity factor (${C}_{f} = \frac{{E}_{a}}{{E}_{m}}$, where E_a (kWh) is the actual annual electricity generated and E_m (installed capacity (kWh) * 8760 h) is the maximum possible electricity that could have been generated if the power plant was operated at full capacity for entire period (say, 1 year ^[21]) for these hydropower plants increased from 54.3% in 2016 to about 57.8% in 2018 and thereafter decreased to 46.2% by 2020 (see Figure 3), with an average value capacity factor of 53.1% over the last 5 years. This value is comparable with global weighted-average of capacity factors for large hydropower, which ranges between 33% (in Europe) and 60% (in South America, excluding Brazil) ^[9]. This shows that hydropower plants in Uganda are operating efficiently relative to global large hydro power installations. However, considering the level of available water and river resources in Uganda, it could be possible to improve the performance of the hydro power installations in Uganda through proper management which could be due to many factors, such as poor design, lack of or insufficient transmission network, uncoordinated maintenance operation and water resource management, inadequate skilled workforce, and economic and financial related factors.

4.   Hydropower Technology

Hydropower is the electrical power generated from falling or running water. Mathematically, the power output of any hydropower is given as:

where P_H is power output (W), ${\eta }_{t}$ is the hydropower efficiency (%), $\dot{Q}$ is the volume flow rate (m³/s), H is the hydraulic head (m) and the value 9810 is a product of density of water (1000 kg/m³) and acceleration due to gravity (9.81 m/s²). Eq 1 shows that, even though the density of water varies slightly with ambient temperature, the performance of a hydropower plant is primarily a function of water volume flow rate and hydraulic head of the water resource. Furthermore, using these two parameters, the appropriate hydro turbines can be selected for specific hydropower projects. The hydro turbine is a mechanical device that converts energy contained in flowing water into rotational energy, which can be used to drive a generator and produce electricity. The maximum efficiency of most turbines, especially large turbines is of order 90% and this efficiency will be reduced if the flow is reduced. For the turbine to operate, there must be a minimum amount of water ^[22].

Based on the mechanism of power extraction from water resources, hydro turbines can be classified into impulse and reaction turbines ^[23]. Impulse turbines are driven by jets of water issuing from one or more nozzles distributed tangentially around the periphery of the wheel ^[24]. These turbines are generally used where a high head of water is available, and the flow rate is relatively low. On the other hand, reaction turbines use the water flow to generate hydrodynamic lift forces that propel the runner blades ^[22]. These turbines are completely submerged in the water flow, and more suitable for low hydraulic head and high flow rate. The common examples of impulse turbines are Pelton and Turgo turbines while those of reaction turbines are Kaplan and Francis turbines.

In addition to impulse and reaction turbines, hydrokinetic turbine ^[25,26], and gravity turbines ^[27] (such as waterwheel ^[28,29] and Archimedes screw ^[30]) are other hydropower technologies that can be viable for low head and low flow rate rivers and could represent an attractive solution for micro power generation, especially in rural areas with low electrical energy demand. Gravity turbines are driven by the weight of water entering the top of the turbine and falling to the bottom, and thereby turning the turbine ^[27]. Hydrokinetic turbines on the other hand generate power by extracting kinetic energy from flowing water rather than potential energy from waterfall ^[25,31] with a zero head requirement. Hydrokinetic technology is more economical compared to solar power systems ^[31].

Table 6 shows some of the technical characteristics of the hydropower resource in Uganda. As shown in this table most sites with suitable resources for hydropower in the country have low hydraulic head and relatively high flow rate, and hence, reaction turbines (Kaplan and Francis turbines) are generally employed for hydropower projects in this country. However, some dams in this country use impulse turbines, which are appropriate for sites with a high head and low flow rate. For example, the Pelton turbine is proposed to be used at Muzizi hydropower plant (44.7 MW) due its high head (465 m) ^[32].

Uganda has several small rivers and streams, in which micro and pico-hydropower technologies such as the hydro kinetic and gravity wheels could be employed to solve most of the country power generation problems and narrow the electricity access gap as well. Micro hydropower plants are small hydropower plants of size 100 kW and discharges of a few cubic meters per second or less while pico plants are less than 5 kW. Sites suitable for micro hydro exist in almost all countries ^[28,36], besides they are very attractive because of their eco-sustainability and wide applicability, especially for rural areas ^[37] for countries like Uganda which are largely rural. However, no information about current use of these micro- and pico- hydropower plants in Uganda are found in open literature.

5.   Challenges facing hydropower development in Uganda

Hydropower plants in many developing countries are underdeveloped despite having a high potential to generate electricity ^[38]. This is attributed to low technological developments, inadequate finances, and remoteness in many such countries ^[38,39]. In general, under-development of Uganda's power sector and specifically hydropower generation subsector could be attributed to many factors which are environmental, economic, social, and technical ^[40]. These challenges have limited the amount of power generated from hydropower resources and have limited energy access from hydropower resources. They are briefly highlighted in the following subsections.

5.1.   High investment cost

Hydropower projects require huge investment costs because of civil engineering work (which depends on the individual site's conditions) cost, equipment cost, land compensations costs and transmission system cost. Well-developed and planned transmission and distribution system is also essential for an economically viable and efficient power sector system. Furthermore, the land tenure in Uganda is largely freehold that requires both the government and hydropower developers to compensate landowners leading to further increase the investment cost of hydropower plants in Uganda ^[1]. In addition, development of power plants and high voltage transmission systems, concurrently, contributed to the high cost of power plants in Uganda. According to Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) Action Agenda (AA) for Uganda, Uganda requires an investment of US＄95.2 billion to allow power generation capacity to reach over 2400 MW by 2030 ^[14,41].

Table 7 shows the hydropower investment costs in Uganda compared with other neighboring countries. Table 7 clearly indicates that the cost/kW of hydropower plants in Uganda (US＄2433/kW), on average, is higher than hydropower plants in Tanzania (US＄1654/kW) and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) (US＄1814/kW). When compared with the global average of US＄1254/kW to 1824/kW between 2010 and 2019, while hydropower plants costs are within these averages for Tanzania and DRC, however, that of Uganda is outside this range. In addition, Table 6 shows that construction cost of large hydropower dams in Uganda is quite high, despite the fact these are run-of-river hydropower. For instance, 600 MW Karuma hydropower currently costs US＄1653 million.

5.2.   High operation and maintenance costs

The operation and maintenance expenses (OPEX) include salaries, administrative costs, repairs, and maintenance. These costs are relatively higher in Uganda when compared to some East African countries (as shown in Table 8). This can be attributed to employment of foreign expatriates to run and manage these plants due to low skilled and low experienced personnel in the country ^[1]. Among these countries only Rwanda has higher operation and maintenance costs of hydropower plants per kW billed than Uganda ^[44].

5.3.   Inadequate infrastructure

In addition to hydropower plants specific equipment and facilities such as transmission lines, road network as well as resources assessment facility and readily available land, are some of the issues that can contribute to economic viability of hydropower plants. The high costs of land acquisition, land encroachment, weak local construction industry in terms of technical and financial capacity are some of the challenges facing transmission lines and road network development in Uganda ^[46], and hence, are challenges facing power projects in this country. Furthermore, transmission lines are restricted to some selected areas due to limited resources and, additionally the costs of providing transmission lines to rural areas are too high due to remoteness of the areas, dispersed populations, and difficulty of the terrain ^[47]. Similarly, delay in implementation of various transmission projects, such as Tororo-Lira transmission line, Bujagali-Tororo-Lessos and Kurama-Kawanda transmission projects ^[3] across the country, which is due to financial inadequacy, also have significant effect on hydropower power development in the country. Similarly, the highly centralized nature of the country's electricity related infrastructure development is a challenge to hydropower resource development through bureaucratic formalities that delay developments ^[48].

5.4.   Low human and institutional capacity

Low human and institutional capacities to manage design, construction and management of hydropower plants are another barrier to hydropower plant development in Uganda. This is attributed to low-training, lack of workforce and skilled labor that possess strong knowledge in hydropower related activities (such as resource assessment, engineering work, and project management) in the country. Therefore, Uganda mainly depends on international expertise, to evaluate and manage hydropower plants in the country ^[1]. For instance, the concession for operation and maintenance of Kiira and Nalubaale hydropower stations is fully outsourced ^[44]. Therefore, most hydropower plants in Uganda are designed, constructed, and maintained by foreign expertise with minimal input from Ugandans, which leads to high life-cycle cost hydropower facilities. This situation is like in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa ^[49], where lack of local professionals is identified as a major impediment to implementation of hydropower technologies, especially those of small hydropower projects.

5.5.   Community resistance to hydropower projects

Community resistance arises due to fear of displacement, loss of agricultural land, loss of vegetation and loss of social connections between people of the same community along the river basin, as well as clashes among different communities which hinders hydropower projects ^[49]. For instance, in Uganda, setting up a hydropower plant along River Achwa was estimated to cause vegetation clearance and loss of cultivation land with effects ranging from 'medium negative' to long term negative duration ^[50]. Also, the hydropower project along River Achwa claimed approximately 315 ha from Achwa Ranch, affecting livestock in the region ^[50]. Such negative consequences have provoked community resentments to hydropower projects. Some community members also fear losing the source of their livelihood, which is mainly fishing due to dam construction, restricted access to rivers and the commonly unfulfilled compensation promises by the hydropower plants developers. For instance, developers of Bujagali hydropower plant promised to establish a market for community members for livelihood sustenance due to loss of fishing sites and construction of a technical school for skills development for community members to access gainful employment. After over 10 years, these promises were never fulfilled ^[15]. Hence, community settlements around potential hydropower sites are now more resistant to hydropower plants establishment and their smooth operations.

5.6.   Climate change and variation

Hydropower generation depends on the run-of river water, which has a direct relationship with the amount of water entering and leaving the rivers. Between 2005 and 2007, Uganda experienced a drought ^[51,52], which affected hydropower electricity generation. There was a clear sharp decline in power generation from the large hydropower plants, mainly Nalubaale hydropower plant between 2006 to 2008, due to the decrease in water levels of Lake Victoria and high evaporation from the lake due to high temperature ^[52,53]. This affected power generation from the power plants that depend on White Nile River, whose source is Lake Victoria. There is a fear that hydropower potential will face a projected 26% decline due to an estimated reduction in precipitation in the country by 2050 ^[54]. Climate change also has an impact on the electricity infrastructure in the country. This is created by weather extremes like floods that damage hydropower spillways and damage the electricity transmission infrastructure. An example was observed in May 2020, when the Nyamwamba small hydro project camp (in Uganda) was washed away by heavy flood, which was attributed to climate change, leaving the region in a total black out ^[55].

6.   Suggested policy solutions

The government of Uganda has come up with various policies to solve the challenges to hydropower production. It has among other factors liberalized hydropower generation by encouraging Independent Power Plants (IPPs) and Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) for hydropower generation power plants (Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, 2019) to solve financing problems. The Energy and Mineral Development Sector Development Plan (EMDSDP) 2015/16–2019/20, was also set up to raise short- and long-term measures to eliminate hindrances to power generation in Uganda and set up policies to enhance power generation ^[6]. However, various challenges to power generation have persisted in the country, hydropower inclusive ^[56]. Thus, much more is required to tackle some impediments to hydropower production in the country.

6.1.   Reducing investment and operation and maintenance costs

To minimize investment costs, the engineering hydropower policy in Uganda should, among other factors, consider large dam projects with a smaller reserve surface area in comparison with power generated ^[44]. This would reduce expenditure on land compensations and curtail the bureaucracies in land negotiation procedures. In addition, the government of Uganda should enact laws restricting human settlement upstream and downstream of river basins. This shall gazette areas for establishment of dams and other infrastructures for hydropower generation plants, hence minimizing expenses on land compensation which exaggerate investment bills.

Furthermore, Uganda should endeavor to increase access to electricity and distribute the unit costs of production/kWh to a wider sample of consumers. Access to electricity in Uganda is rated at 28% ^[1], which puts a big burden on electricity consumers, to recover the costs of generation, transmission, and distribution, and widens the recovery period of funds invested to produce and supply electricity. Increase in electricity access rate can therefore neutralize the costs/kWh consumed.

To reduce the operation and maintenance costs, Uganda needs to benchmark cost efficiency of hydropower generation within plants in the country ^[57,58,59] and across plants with the neighboring countries, using benchmarking models ^[59,60]. Such a policy can expose inefficiencies among hydropower generation plants arising from the different parameters that influence hydropower generation ^[61,62]. Cost inefficient plants can be penalized by setting high targets for them, as cost-efficient plants are incentivized. Incentive regulation shall then force inefficient cost firms to move to the frontier hence minimizing operation and maintenance expenses ^[62].

6.2.   Developing local capacity

Furthermore, to minimize dependency on foreign expatriates, who are costly, conditions should be set in the agreements with hydropower developers to train local manpower to manage the hydropower plants, and clear deadlines established to when the local manpower should take over from the foreign expatriates. However, caution should be taken to ascertain the nature of skills equipped to the local personnel which can be augmented by further research and training workshops ^[44]. Furthermore, specialized curriculums in collaboration with industrial partners should be developed by Uganda's Universities in energy technologies with focus on hydropower and other energy resources in the country.

6.3.   Reducing impact of climate change

To minimize the effects of climate change and variation, the government may consider investing more in small scale and medium scale hydropower generating plants instead of large-scale hydropower generating plants. Small hydropower generating plants depend on less water levels to run turbines and hence are less affected by reduced water levels ^[63,64]. Furthermore, structural policies on Integrated and Sustainable Water Management in Uganda should be done in consideration of the Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways (DAPP) to attain robust water management plans. With DAPP, the design posts to the impact of changes in climate to the water systems is catered for by estimating different scenarios and mitigation measures predicted ahead of time ^[65]. In scenario analysis, inter-annual water flow variability and intra-annual water flow variability should be scrutinized to predetermine the increases in water flows that cause floods and the decline in water flows that reduce water flow levels ^[66,67]. This should be done in addition to systematic reservoir operation management to heighten power production ^[67].

6.4.   Reducing community resistance

To solve the problem of community resistance to hydropower projects, the government of Uganda needs to establish a clear and well-defined resettlement plan for natives that are to be displaced by the establishment of hydropower generation plants. The resettlement plan should be discussed by the affected populace and the project development partners to come up with a win-win resolution ^[68]. The plan implementation should be carefully supervised by the government officials and communities' leaders not to divert from the intended objectives. Furthermore, nearby communities should be given access priority to the electricity generated from these water resources and subsidized their connection and access fee to the electricity distribution network.

7.   Discussion and conclusions

Uganda's electricity generation sector is dominated by hydropower. The country has a big potential for hydropower generation and is highly preferred due to its renewable nature. Hydropower has a total installed capacity of 1011.3 MW by 2020 and there is a future prospect of over 4,000 MW of hydropower yet to be developed. Both large hydropower projects and small hydropower projects have been established with small hydropower projects dominating. Considering its friendliness to nature and environment, hydropower has attracted financing from both the government and private sector.

Public Private Partnerships for investment in large hydropower plants have been undertaken, while Independent hydropower plants are mainly operating on a small-scale, with capacity not more than 20 MW. Small hydropower plants have dominated the hydropower generation industry, due to many rural and remote areas in the country, and a low industrial base whose energy consumption rate is low. Besides, small hydropower plants are relatively cheaper in terms of construction and reclaim less land for plant construction compared to large hydropower plants. However, Uganda still lags in terms of total populace with access to electricity making the country one of the countries with the lowest electricity consumption in the world and sub-Saharan Africa. This could be attributed to the challenges faced by the hydropower developments within the country which are categorized as financial, economic, social, and environmental challenges.

To address the challenges facing hydropower developments in Uganda, it is imperative to invest in human capital, establish measures to increase access to electricity to reduce the average costs/kWh generated and distributed, and invest in large dam projects with a small reserve surface area in comparison with power generated, especially for the urban dwellers and for the industrial parks. We recommend a scientific study to be done, assessing the cost efficiency of electricity generation by hydropower plants within plants in Uganda and across plants in neighbouring countries using benchmarking models. This could scientifically explain why hydropower plants development in Uganda is relatively more expensive than hydropower plants development in other East African countries.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.