Action Agenda
Energy Efficiency
Our most cost-effective and surest new sources of energy for Ugandans are simple and inexpensive energy efficiency measures to reduce the gross waste of the conventional energy we pay so dearly for today. These measures include revitalizing our decrepit railroads, energy performance standards for new buildings, efficient charcoal stoves, solar water heating, energy-saving lighting systems, and renovating our decaying electrical grid.
Yet government budgets shortchange such initiatives while lavishing billions of dollars on failed programs. By their actions, our leaders display a careless disregard for conserving what few energy resources we have to use in the most cost-effective way possible. Our future economic competitiveness depends on decisions we make today to become truly energy efficient.
If Uganda spends billions of dollars on projects to increase supplies of electricity and other forms of energy, only to squander much of it with preventable energy waste, we will continue to lose to competitors in the global economy.
NAPE Actions
Aware that energy efficiency equates to economic efficiency and competitiveness, NAPE advocates such initiatives as the following:
Revitalizing Uganda’s once-strategic railroad system can yield great efficiencies transporting goods and passengers using a fraction of the energy consumed by trucks and automobiles. It will also reduce costs for transporting both consumer goods and capital equipment and raw materials.
Replacing bricks baked in wood-fired backyard kilns with soil-stabilized blocks requiring no firing would save significant volumes of firewood and mortar required to join together the crudely-formed bricks.
Expanding the use of charcoal stoves that cut fuel consumption by half can significantly reduce demand for wood from stressed forests. By a recent count, more than 500,000 homes now have such stoves, but we can do much more.
Required energy performance standards in all new construction would result in operating savings for owners and lower demand for electricity from the national grid.
Urban planning and growth management, enforced uniformly, can replace energy-wasting sprawl developments that require long commuting distances with compact, sustainable communities that require less energy.
Government must mandate the monopoly electricity provider, Umeme, to carry out an aggressive program to reduce technical and commercial electricity losses now at 35 percent to the international standard of five percent. Reducing total losses to five percent would increase electricity supplies to paying customers by nearly 50 percent, with no increase needed in generation needed.
A more dispersed, less centralized electrical generation system using alternative energy sources would also reduce losses of current from long transmission lines and theft.
Better seed varieties, use of bio-solids to fertilize crops, and improved farming practices would reduce the need for expensive chemicals and wasted energy.
Simply expanding the use of compact fluorescent bulbs can produce big savings. According to a government report in 2006, replacing one million light bulbs with energy saver bulbs, at a cost of US$2.5 million, would save 50MW of electricity, an output equal to a large oil-powered electricity generating plant (at a fraction of the cost).
Conducting free energy audits in homes and businesses can heighten awareness about hidden sources of waste, motivating owners to invest in improved efficiency.
These are just a few of the energy efficiency improvements that government could complete if it had the political will, and NAPE will continue to advocate for an aggressive energy program of alternatives and efficiencies.
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