The Renewable Energy Policy for Uganda

Law passed

The Renewable Energy Policy follows the commitment in the National Energy Policy 2002 to develop the use of renewable energy resources in Uganda. The Government's overarching policy vision for renewable energy is to make modern renewable energy a substantial part of national energy consumption, where modern renewable energy is understood to mean renewable energy resources that are transformed into modern energy services like electricity.<br />
To achieve its goal, a number of supporting objectives are identified. These include: maintaining and improving the responsiveness of the legal and institutional framework to promote renewable energy investments; establishing an financing and fiscal policy framework for investments in renewable energy; increasing public awareness in renewable energy and promoting investment in this area; promoting research and development as well as international co-operation in renewable energy technologies (RETs); utilizing biomass energy efficiently and sustainably; and promoting the conversion of municipal and industrial waste to energy.<br />
Various strategies and policy actions are elaborated in order to achieve these objectives. A power generation programme will support public and private sector investments in renewable energy, focussing on large hydropower schemes (hydropower being the most well developed RET) as well as small and more diverse schemes. A rural and urban-poor electricity access programme will support the development of RETs in dispersed and remote settlements. A modern energy services programme will support RETs such as solar PV and solar water heaters, a biofuels programme will support improvements in biofuel technology, and a waste for energy programmes will support the conversion of waste to energy. An energy efficiency programmes will implement the Uganda Energy Efficiency Strategy.<br />
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The responsibility for the policy lies with the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development and a Renewable Energy Department is to be developed within the Ministry. Moreover, a special financial mechanism, a credit support facility known as the Uganda Energy Capitalisation Trust, is instituted to help realise the policy. The ultimate goal of the Renewable Energy Policy is to increase the use of modern renewable energy, from the current 4% to 61% of the total energy consumption by the year 2017.