Rwanda unveiled a new plan to up its rural electrification on March 5, focusing on solar panels and mini-grids. The government aims to bring power to 70% of its population by 2017, but that figure may be a bit too unrealistic since its current electrification rate stands around 15%. The Ministry of Infrastructure released a report that said with at the country’s current rate, only 33% of Rwandans living on-grid will have electricity by 2017.
State Minister in Charge of Energy Emma-Francoise Isumbingabo said that 100,000 biogas digesters need to be fully subsidized to the poorest families in categories 1 and 2. However, the government will need to spend $17.6 million for fully subsided 22,990 biogas digesters for the poorest families while $2.1 million would be spent on loans for 76,580 biogas digesters. Overall, Rwanda will need to spend an estimated $621 million for universal access compared to its original plan of nearly $800 million under the Electricity Access Role-out Program.
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