Phase 1: The Mwenga Hydro and Rural Electrification Project
Project Developer: Mwenga Hydro Ltd.
Project Partners: EU/ACP Energy Facility, Rural Energy Agency of Tanzania (REA)
Project Status: Operational (since 2012)
The Mwenga Hydro and Rural Electrification Project is an integrated, renewable energy infrastructure project, located in the Mufindi District (Southern Highlands of Tanzania) and was developed in cooperation with the EU/ACP Energy Facility, REA and TRIT (Tea Research Institute of Tanzania).
Since commissioning in 2012, RVE’s operates a 4MW hydro-power-station and about 400 km of rural distribution network, supplying about 21.5 GWh (per annum) of grid-quality, renewable electricity (approx. 0.5% of the national usage) to the National Utility (TANESCO), the local tea industry (as a back-up facility), as well as to 32 villages in the Mufindi district (Mwenga and Kihansi areas).
To best service its rural network community, RVE has set up its own rural distribution company (Mwenga Power Services Ltd., MPL), which has developed and deployed an innovative state of the art cell-phone based, pre-paid-electricity-vending-system, supplying to rural customers with affordable, green, on-demand electricity.
With this project RVE has also been successful in developing the first, private, UNFCCC registered CDM project in Tanzania, generating estimated 100,000 CERs over a 7-year crediting period.
