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The World Bank Group on 31 May approved a $100m loan for the Grid Expansion and Reinforcement Project (Gerp), which is expected to run until October 2022. Some $27.3m is also being provided for the project by the Ugandan government. Gerp will fund the construction of new transmission infrastructure and provide support for the Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Ltd (UETCL) and the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development (MEMD).

Uganda has decided to build an export pipeline from Lake Albert to Tanzania’s Tanga port, rather than the route through northern Kenya to Lamu previously agreed by President Yoweri Museveni and his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta. A communiqué issued at the end of a one-day summit of the Northern Corridor Integration Projects in Kampala on 23 April said Museveni and Kenyatta had agreed that two crude oil pipelines be constructed. “The oil pipeline from Lokichar to Lamu in Kenya and another oil pipeline from Hoima to Tanga in Tanzania will be developed by the countries respectively,” the communiqué said.

There has been speculation in the Ugandan media about the worsening situation at the 600MW Karuma and 183MW Isimba hydroelectric power projects. Reports say a rift between the Ministry of Energy and the Uganda Electricity Generation Company (UEGCL) has resulted in tension at the site between the ministry’s owner’s engineer, Indian firm Energy Infratech, and the main contractor China’s Sinohydro.

Norwegian state-owned SN Power has agreed to buy SG Bujagali Holdings (SGBH)’s stake in the 250MW Bujagali dam. The hydro plant is operated by Bujagali Energy Ltd, which is owned by the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, SGBH and the government of Uganda. The other shareholdings will remain unchanged. Sithe Global affiliate SGBH is a Mauritian company indirectly owned by investment funds managed by Blackstone.

The Netherlands’ FMO on 15 April announced a $10.2m senior loan for the development and construction of a 5.4MW run-of-river hydropower project in western Uganda. The project will be developed and owned by Lubilia Kawembe Hydro Ltd, which is majority owned by Frontier Market Energy & Carbon Fund K/S, a Danish private equity fund developing a portfolio of renewable energy independent power producers in East Africa. FMO acted as mandated lead arranger of the facility, of which 50% was syndicated to the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund.

Construction officially got under way on 17 March at the $19m 10MW Soroti solar photovoltaic (PV) project in eastern Uganda. The project was selected through the Global Energy Transfer Feed-in Tariffs (GET FiT) scheme in December 2014, bidding a tariff of 16.38c/kWh over the course of the 20-year power purchase agreement. Commercial operations are expected in July.

Seven of the 16 prequalified companies have submitted bids for the six blocks in Uganda’s first licensing round. The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development said in a statement the bidders were Australia’s Armour Energy and Swala Energy, Nigeria’s Waltersmith Petroman Oil, Oranto Petroleum International and Niger Delta Petroleum Resources, and Texas-based Rift Energy Corporation and Glint Energy.

France’s Eren Renewable Energy and Dubai-based Access Infra Africa said on 17 February that construction of their 10MW solar photovoltaic project at Soroti would begin in March. The developers describe the project, which has an estimated cost of $19m, as the largest privately funded solar power plant in sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa. The project is the first to be developed under Uganda’s Global Energy Transfer Feed-in Tariffs (GET FiT) scheme managed by Germany’s KfW Development Bank and Uganda’s Electricity Regulatory Agency.

British Virgin Islands-registered Ncondezi Energy Ltd has signed a joint development agreement with China’s Shanghai Electric Power Company Ltd (SEP) for the 300MW Ncondezi coal power project in Tete province. SEP will invest up to $25.5m to cover development costs to financial close in return for a 60% equity stake in the project’s special purpose vehicle Ncondezi Power Company. Ncondezi Energy will retain the remaining 40%.

Rwanda and Uganda are the first East African countries to become members of the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), which aims to bring together governments and private stakeholders to mobilise funds for infrastructure projects. Rwanda, which signed the AFC’s instrument of accession and acceptance of membership on 4 November, and Uganda, which signed on 6 November, bring the total members to 13. AFC’s other members are Cape Verde, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

The Africa Renewable Energy Fund (AREF) is seeking expressions of interest for an engineering, procurement and construction contract for the 14MW-18MW Kikagati hydro project in Insingiro District, western Uganda, on the border with Tanzania. AREF is a $200m fund that reached final close in Q3 2015 and is managed by Berkeley Energy. It is developing the Kikagati project in partnership with Norway’s Norfund. The contract covers the design, manufacture, supply, transportation, construction, installation and commissioning of turbines and associated works.

Dubai-based Access Consultants DMCC and France’s EREN Renewable Energy SA have signed a financing agreement with Dutch development finance institution FMO for a 10MW solar photovoltaic (PV) project. The pair were selected as preferred bidders in the country’s Global Energy Transfer Feed-in Tariffs (GET FiT) scheme in December 2014 and project sources say they hope to reach financial close on the project before Christmas. Construction is expected to take six to seven months.

Uganda’s request to receive $50m from the Scaling Up Renewable Energy Programme (SREP) for low-income countries endorsed by the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) includes $6.8m to support the Rural Electrification Board’s planned wind assessment and two 10MW pilot wind farms. The 2010-15 National Development Plan called for the establishment of a wind energy database after preliminary data suggested particular potential in the northern Karamoja region. The government installed two wind measurement sets in July 2015 and intends to use SREP funds to co-finance wind measurement at six other sites in the north, mostly in Karamoja.

Uganda Electricity Generation Company (UEGCL) has announced a forthcoming tender for the construction of the Muzizi hydropower project. The 45MW diversion scheme on the Muzizi River in western Uganda will be implemented under an engineering, procurement and construction arrangement with financing from Germany’s KfW, the Agence Française de Développement and the government of Uganda.

Tullow Oil is expecting to receive production licences for its Ugandan fields by year-end, though the issue of pipeline routing is likely to hold up the next stage of development. The company has submitted a field development plan for Uganda, and expects to submit a similar plan for its fields in Kenya’s South Lokichar Basin by the end of December. Tullow vice-president African business Tim O’Hanlon told the opening session of Global Pacific & Partners’ Africa Upstream conference in Cape Town on 27 October the project had made “steady progress” over the past year