Tanzania: How Afdb-backed Transmission Line Could Boost Electricity Trading And Regional Integration

Africa's power pools play a crucial role in supporting regional integration by facilitating grid interconnection between neighboring countries. These interconnected grids allow nations to buy and sell power across borders through a shared market mechanism.

Investing in the vital infrastructure that underpins these power pools will as such remain a key focus for the African Development Bank as it intensifies efforts to light up and power Africa under Mission 300.

The Bank highlighted this commitment during a press event in Dodoma, Tanzania, in the run up to the Africa Energy Summit in Dar es Salaam this January. It said that the Iringa-Shinyanga transmission line in Tanzania had emerged as a vital link in the Eastern Africa Power Pool EAPP and that it would help boost the continent's fledgling but promising regional electricity markets.

This multi-partner project - backed by five financial partners including the African Development Bank and the World Bank - involves a 400 kV transmission line linking Iringa in the southern highlands to Shinyanga in the northern parts of the country.

The 670 km transmission line reinforces a preexisting 220 kV line and has significantly boosted energy reliability for households and businesses by linking power generation sources in southern Tanzania to load centers in the north.