Infrastructure adequacy for electricity trading in East Africa

Abstract

A well-designed and managed electricity supply infrastructure system is essential for integrated energy market. This paper tracks progress on infrastructure for electricity trading in East Africa integrated electricity market. Using data on electricity infrastructure targets in Master Plan 2013-2023 and actual infrastructure delivered by 2022, we conducted earned value analysis (EVA) to establish whether the completed generation and transmission infrastructure can adequately facilitate electricity trading across EAC countries. Findings show that by 2022 the region had realized 54% of the 12,567MW planned generation capacity and 211% of transmission network targets. Investment inflows for infrastructure have been faster than anticipated with actual variance of 325%. This triggered 47% earned value in surplus load worth US$357million of trade, despite actual electricity trading not happening at the same pace. We construed some merit-order conditions for iterative planning to synchronize generation infrastructure with transmission infrastructure for trade efficiency.