Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has become an advocate for investment in the renewable energy sector as his country, and the rest of the continent struggles with the lack of electricity needed to transform their respective economies.
Kagame was on hand at the commissioning of the 140-MW Olkaria 1 Geothermal plant in Kenya. The Rwandan president is now pushing East African countries to invest in energy as an essential driver of economic development.
“European countries are producing more electricity than Africa… what are they doing with their electricity that we can’t do?” he said.
“This project that has been opened to start producing electricity is important not only to Kenya, but to Rwanda and East Africa,”Kagame said of Naivasha power plant.
Kagame said it’s time Africa began a debate to address energy challenges on the continent and suggested governments to engage the private sector. “The debate is about having sufficient electricity to power industry, school, homes and the whole economy as it should be… we need to have a conversation between government and business,” he said.
He said no one should dictate to the other.
Early this year, Rwanda signed an agreement with Kenya to import 30MW as part of adding up to 70MW to be connected to the national grid this year. The electricity will be connected to the national grid by October 2015.
Rwanda’s current power generation capacity is 160MW, but aims to hit 563 MW by 2018.