Posted on August, 06 2018

The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development and World Wide Fund for Nature Uganda Country Office held a procurement committee meeting last week at the Colline Hotel, Mukono to shortlist solar home system suppliers for rural communities in 20 Districts of the Albertine Graben in Uganda.

Through the European Union funding for the Scaling-up rural electrification using innovative solar PV distribution models project, WWF is seeking for suppliers to deliver up to 10,000 solar home systems to these communities.
The said  rural communities are not served by the distribution networks for solar PV companies in Uganda as these are concentrated in the urban centres.

 The Project Manager at WWF  Edna Nyamwaka stated that WWF is  addressing  this challenge by working with 62 community based organizations that are  acting  as distribution and advocacy agents for renewable energy products.

“This current procurement has  drawn  lessons  from previous project implementations and seeks to deliver energy access at scale .  The new products will have pay-as-you go functionality integrated to enable communities to be able to afford the products”, she said.

While speaking at the closure of the evaluation meeting, the Chairperson of the procurement committee in the Ministry of Energy, Ag  Commissioner Wafula Wilson stated  that the success of this energy access intervention is critical  for the people of Uganda as it  will enable communities to get clean lighting in their homes”.

This supply of solar home systems that will light up homes in twenty districts from Kisoro to Koboko will contribute to increasing the access to electricity to more than 50,000 Ugandans by the year 2020.

The WWF GO Solar Campaign

WWF is running the “GO Solar” campaign to promote the uptake of solar technologies among rural communities in the Albertine region. On offer are three products – Super Taala, Super Max and Panda Extra to cater for the different energy needs of households. The products come with a flexible payment period of one year to cater for the low income groups.

Under this campaign, WWF will also install solar systems to 51 health centres and schools to improve service provision in these areas. The campaign is being implemented in 20 districts across the Albertine Region with funding from the EU