Electricity The available electricity generation capacity in Rwanda in July 2009 is 69MW and is largely produced from hydro

power and thermal sources. Overall power production has stabilized after severe power shortages in 2004 that caused massive load shedding all over the country, and prompted the government to hire emergency power solutions and invest in increasing generation capacity. Generation capacity will be expanded to at least 130MW by 2012 mainly through investment in hydropower and methane gas to power projects. The current electricity grid consists of around 3300 km of different voltage levels and is shown on the map below:

Through these initiatives, the Government of Rwanda intends to increase the percentage of the population with access to electricity from the current 6% to 16% by 2012 through the national Electricity Access Roll out Programme (EARP), which aims to implement the targets formulated in the EDPRS. This translates into at least 350,000 connections to the national grid. The grid component of the programme is being implemented by the national utility RECO (Rwanda Electricity Coorporation). The EARP also has an off-grid component that is being managed by

the Ministry of Infrastructure and includes solar photovoltaic (solar PV) electrification for social institutions too far from the grid to be connected within the next five years (> 5 km from the network), and micro hydropower development for rural communities. A programme prospectus has been developed for the high level planning of the programme which outlines the geo-spatial planning required to identify which community sectors shall be electrified first and what volume of financing is necessary to implement the first phase of the programme. All development partners in the energy sector have pledged to support the EARP through various financing mechanisms and with different focus areas: The Belgian Government and the European Union are supporting the off-grid part of the programme through development of micro hydro and solar PV, which is already underway and new funding from the Belgian government is expected by 2011 The World Bank is supporting the on-grid component of the programme and is mainly allocating its funding contribution (USD78m for the procurement of materials OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) is contributing a concessional loan of USD10m and is aligning its implementation with the World Bank The Saudi Fund for Development (USD11.7m ) and Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA) (USD10m ) are giving concessional loans for electrification of 18,000 households in Kigali, Nyagatare and the Southern Province Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) (~USD20m) is supporting the rehabilitation of substations, the rehabilitation and extension of the grid and capacity building in RECO The Dutch Government has already disbursed the first tranche (EUR10m) of the contribution to the programme (total EUR30m) and is supporting grid extension and connections as well as renewable energy generation. The first tranche will be used to procure materials for at least 15,000 new connections The African Development Bank (ADB) is contributing USD60m starting from 2010; areas of intervention are yet to be identified

RECO has set up a programme management department (PMD) for the EARP, for which the structure has been approved by its board, job descriptions have been finalised and recruitment is ongoing. This department will manage the grid aspect of the programme and is developing the processes and systems for its implementation. This will also assist the monitoring of the progress to be reported back to development partners in the Energy Sector Working Group every two months. RECO is also responsible for ring-fencing the financing of the different development partners for accountability purposes. RECO has developed an Immediate Action Plan (IAP) covering the period until the end of 2009 which is mainly being financed through the Dutch Governments contribution. The procurement plan for the IAP is currently at MININFRA for approval. The PMD will now have to embark on detailed design and planning for the next phases of the roll-out programme. This planning exercise will be based on aerial photographs of the country on

which the new lines can be planned according to the exact location of settlements, accounting for the planned Imidugudu. Electrification of those Imidugudu will also support the overall resettlement process. RECO will try to procure materials in bulk in order to reduce overall costs and is currently finalising the technical specifications required.