Category: Community

In order to ground ourselves deeper into the problem of energy resilience in Uganda, we decided to do some exploratory research into the actual root cause of power outages in urban areas of Kampala over the past 5 years.

We reviewed reports by the main power distributor (UMEME/UEDCL), interviewed some of their staff who were willing to share some internal information off the record and also reviewed other recent academic publications that have explored the same question.

Here’s what we learned are the main causes but first, we also asked the general public living in Kampala today to appreciate what they believed was the cause of the power outages they experience daily in their homes, workplaces and businesses.

What the residents think

We surveyed over 150 residents in Kampala and here’s what they think causes power outages. They are not wrong, well, most of them but as we’ll learn from the data, the reasons are lot more nuanced.

Here’s some interesting “other reasons” respondents provided in their own comments

• Sheer incompetence
• Maintenance routines
• All the above plus negligence
• By road construction in the neighborhood
• DIVERSITY FACTOR
• Inadequate technical HR
• Old transformers
• Overpopulation in areas that were not planned for extra power supply
• Other technical issues (faults) possibly due to power surges
• Sometimes it goes off and yet the yaka meter is still reading. Not sure what causes that.
• The network assets are aged and not replaced on time
• Transformer blow out
• Mostly for my concern some areas with transformer…lack enough Earthing and neutral loss
  

If you’re wondering what that respondent meant by “DIVERSITY FACTOR”, so are we 😄.

What our research told us

Over the last five months, we’ve been digging into why Kampala’s power seems to have a habit of disappearing — sometimes without warning, often at the worst possible times. After poring over Umeme’s technical reports, talking to regional managers, and looking closely at Kampala-specific data, a picture has emerged: it’s not one single thing. It’s a mix of design choices, the weather, aging equipment, growing demand, and a few human factors thrown in for good measure.

The short version? Our city runs mostly on a radial network — think of it as one-way streets for electricity. If a section goes down, everyone downstream is left in the dark. Add to that trees growing year-round into overhead lines, transformers working way past their limits, and a lot of unplanned connections pulling unpredictable loads… and you’ve got the perfect recipe for frequent outages.

Here’s the longer version;

1. The Way the Network Is Built

Most of Kampala’s grid is set up in a radial design. That’s fine for smaller, less dense areas, but in a busy city it’s a weak point. In a ring network, power can be rerouted if something goes wrong. In a radial network, there’s only one path. One fault and everything connected to that line goes out.

• No backup routes: Because of this, repairs mean shutting down the whole section.
• Too spread out: Feeders (distribution lines from substations) are about 70km long on average; best practice is closer to 10km.
• Overloaded substations: Too few to cover the area properly.

2. The Weather and the Trees

Uganda’s climate is a blessing for farmers, but not so much for overhead power lines. Vegetation grows year-round, and keeping it in check is an endless job. Throw in heavy rains and storms, and things get messy fast.

• Wooden poles: 95% of the infrastructure is overhead and wooden — not great in bad weather.
• Flooding risk: 22% of substations are in flood-prone areas.
• Proof in the underground: Areas with underground cables rarely lose power because of weather meaning that underground power lines maybe more weather resilient than overhead ones.

3. Transformers Under Pressure

Over the last five years, Kampala’s added about 850,000 new customers… but fewer than 1,000 new transformers. That’s an 850-to-1 ratio. This is not even accounting for the load electrifying our mobility will add to the grid. Transformers are burning out because they’re simply carrying more load than they were designed for.

• Common failures: Overloading, unbalanced phases, overheating, and harmonics from electronics.
• Impact: Each replacement takes about a day; smaller repairs still knock things out for hours.

4. Metering Problems and Power Theft

It’s not just the equipment on the poles. On the ground, faulty meters and illegal connections are causing their own havoc. In high-risk areas, 74% of meters tested were faulty, and tampering is common.

• Losses: Kampala accounts for 70% of Umeme’s commercial losses.
• Effect: Unmetered loads cause sudden demand spikes that the system can’t predict or handle.
• Cost: Millions of dollars in lost revenue and higher stress on the network.

5. Old Equipment, Slow Replacement

The grid has doubled in size since 2005, but much of it is old and overdue for replacement. Maintenance is mostly reactive — fix it when it breaks — which means problems build up.

• Aging assets: Large sections are nearing the end of their life.
• Vandalism: From stolen equipment to wayleave violations, human interference is a real factor.

6. Performance and Investment Gaps

Electricity distribution has improved in some ways; faster emergency response, high revenue collection but investment is still limited. When Umeme’s concession was nearing its end, long-term projects were scaled back which means there is plenty more overdue renovations that UEDCL has to undertake over the next few years. We can expect general reliability to get worse before it gets better.

So, What Needs to Change?

If we want fewer blackouts, the fixes aren’t complicated in concept — they just take commitment, money and a lot of innovation:

• Add redundancy: Especially in high-density areas, so faults don’t take out whole neighborhoods.
• Go underground: At least in critical zones where weather and trees are constant problems.
• Plan ahead: Build capacity for the demand we know is coming, not just what’s already here.
• Automate monitoring: So we spot problems before they knock things out or at least before customers report them.
• Manage vegetation smarter: Technology can help track and predict growth near lines.

NFE’s Reliable power microgrids are pushing these resolutions forward by introducing redundancy, underground lines and real-time monitoring in high-density urban neighborhoods using microgrids. Learn more about our work here.

Bottom line

Kampala’s outages are the result of a network that’s stretched too thin, exposed to the elements, and playing catch-up with a fast-growing population. The solutions are clear but unless we shift from reactive fixes to proactive investment, we’ll keep finding ourselves in the dark.

A friend of mine shared this research paper with me today. Academic papers tend to be very dense so I thought I would skim it and attempt highlight it’s insights and implications for the work NFE is doing in Uganda today.

1. Persistent Inequity in Urban Electricity Access

• Urbanization and Grid Limitations: Despite rapid urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa, the electricity grid struggles to meet the needs of marginalized urban populations, especially in informal settlements. These areas house a significant portion of city dwellers, who often face affordability and legal barriers to formal grid access.
• Continued Reliance on Polluting Fuels: Even where grid connections exist, many low-income urban residents continue to rely on biomass and fossil fuels due to the limited affordability, reliability, and safety of grid electricity.

2. Complex and Informal Grid Connections

• Diverse Connection Types: The study identifies a wide variety of grid connection types in Kampala’s informal settlements. These range from standard individual metered connections to collective (shared) metered or unmetered arrangements, and even illegal “tapping” of the grid.
• Service Arrangements: There are at least 29 distinct service arrangements (combinations of connection type and payment recipient), reflecting the complexity and heterogeneity of electricity access in these communities.

3. Financial Flows and Payment Structures

• Who Gets Paid: While 44% of respondents paid the utility directly, a majority (56%) paid intermediaries such as landlords, neighbors, or local electricians (kamyufus). This highlights the prevalence of informal financial arrangements.
• Payment Methods: Payment structures vary widely. Some users pay a flat monthly rate, others use a pay-as-you-go system, and some use a hybrid approach. Collective metered connections often result in less transparent and more inequitable payment systems.

4. Limitations of Existing Metrics

• Inadequacy of Standard Frameworks: Traditional metrics like the World Bank’s Multi-Tier Framework (MTF) fail to capture the realities of informal and improvised grid connections. These frameworks often oversimplify access as binary (connected/unconnected) and overlook the social and structural barriers to equitable electricity access.

5. Policy Implications

• Need for Holistic Approaches: The paper argues for integrating qualitative, user-centered perspectives with technical data to better understand and address the lived realities of electricity access.
• Addressing Structural Barriers: Policymakers must recognize and address the structural inequities that drive informal grid connections, including high connection costs, affordability issues, and insecure land tenure.

6. Empirical Findings from Kampala

• Survey and Monitoring Data: The study is based on surveys (n=500), interviews (n=66), and remote power quality monitoring (n=146) across 25 informal settlements in Kampala.
• Connection Costs: The cost of a formal utility connection ranged from 1 to 3.8 times the average monthly income of respondents, making it prohibitively expensive for many.
• Shared Meters: The majority of metered connections (64%) were collective, with multiple households sharing a single meter, often due to the high cost of individual connections.

Summary Table: Key Findings

Conclusion

The study underscores that grid connections in African cities like Kampala are not translating into equitable, reliable, or safe electricity access for the urban poor. I feel validated to see a more rigorous research process highlight the challenges I have seen in my own experience growing up in Kampala and my conversations with residents there today. Addressing these challenges requires a more nuanced understanding of informal practices, user experiences, and the structural barriers that shape energy access in rapidly urbanizing contexts.

Special thanks to Gilbert Nuwagira for bringing this paper to my attention.