The ultimate goal of Uganda’s National Development Plan and Uganda’s Vision 2040 is to meet the energy needs of the Ugandan population for social and economic development in an environmentally sustainable manner. However, with population growth rates among the highest in Africa (estimated at 3.5% for 2012) and minimal available infrastructure, the level of investment is not substantial enough to meet need (David Nicholson and Kim Beever, 2012). This has resulted in the use of solar energy (Kivaisi 2000), wind energy (Henderson, et al. 2009), 450 Tong et al. Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 14 (2015) 448-491 small hydro-power (Shrestha and Bhattarai 1993; Egre and Milewski 2002), and biomass (Sirte, et al. 2008) in the provision of clean alternative energy sources that could increase the access of the rural/urban poor to electric power (Abdullah, et al. 2010).
Uganda is situated near the equator, with high levels of solar radiation; the average solar radiation is 4.8 kWh/m2/day (Bbumba 1999). Governments can encourage alternative state and non-state entities to venture into power generation through a “feed-in tariffs” mechanism for every registered renewable energy power plant (Dusko and Marinela 2010). Uganda is already exploring this approach, which has been successfully applied elsewhere.
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Source: School of Statistics and Planning (SSP), College of Business and Management Sciences (CoBAMS)