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(2002) Sustainability Indicators for the Tanzanian Energy Sector
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(PDF: 149 Ko / 31 p.)

by LYIMO, B.M and S. MWAKIFWAMBA


 

Summary

Tanzania's energy demand and end-use patterns are characteristic to those observed in other developing countries and thus the sustainability energy indicators. Woodfuel and other forms of biomass dominate the energy balance and account for about 90% of total energy use. The per capita carbon emissions (indicator 1) are very close to the sustainability goal thus suggesting Tanzania as one of the valuable countries to invest in energy related activities. The figure is better because the country has very few energy intensive activities and can be established without altering the vector's position much beyond the sustainability goal. However, the vector values for 1990 is higher than the 1998 vector due to relatively low energy developments as compared to the population increase.

The country has several significant energy related pollutants namely carbon monoxide, methane, nitrogenous oxides to mention a few. The energy sector is categorized into four major sub-sectors, namely woodfuel, petroleum products, electricity and renewable energy recourses. The carbon monoxide emissions (indicator 2) are increasing due to increasing of population accompanied by use of traditional biomass in inefficient manner, coupled by imported mobile polluting sources being second hand cars with low combustion capacity.

Tanzania's household with access to electricity (indicator 3) is as low as 6% of the total population. The calculated vectors values are typical to the prevailing situation of access to electricity in Tanzania, i.e. 0.96 and 0.9 for year 1990 and 1999 respectively. The vector value has comparatively been dropping over years because the population has increased while the population with access to electricity has remained fairly stable. Rural electrification plans if implemented are expected to boost the number of population with access to electricity.

The energy demand forecast especially clean energy investment using an average year-by-year energy consumption of traditional energy for years 1990 to 2010 shows an increase of 2.4% per year. The government has realized that the exploitation of renewable energy resources will not only contribute to, but supplement further development of conventional energy sources. Thus efforts have been directed to hydroelectricity and natural gas reserves. Other clean energy technologies are small in scale and largely undocumented, constituting biogas, mini hydropower, windmills and solar. These technological options except hydropower have not been commercialized rather are used by individuals for their energy usage purposes is scarce as none than TANESCO projects is in national records. From limitation given in the guideline on clean investment of less than 100MW this indicator could be calculated by taking the average investment over the years when the project was being constructed. The investments after commission were not considered.

The report has also featured that Tanzania is not exporting energy basing the available information. However, the country is used as a ferrying agent for petroleum products neighboring African countries. With scarce information on consumption pattern of imported petroleum products the vector especially for energy trade in Tanzania was almost unrealistic but represent the actual facts of low utilization of non-renewable sources, although due to data unavailability and timeframe required for algorithmic analysis of such information, the findings may lead to misinterpretation of the sustainability goal is small.

The required data to calculate the sustainability on energy investments vectors (indicator 6) could not be compared since investment in this case will be expenditure in procuring raw energy. Nevertheless, the costs and amounts of fuel oil from TPDC and TANESCO at any one time were difficult to be located due to poor storage of financial data. The company could not trust the way handling of the so called confidential company information otherwise the author was supposed to follow a bureaucratic clearance procedure which was not possible for the time in subject. Collected data available were found to compile either investment or running expenses that could not be merged together.

Energy intensity (Indicator 7) comparing vectors figures for 1990 and 2000 highlights a decrease in vector magnitude. Although there has been increase in energy production, there has been no proportion in increase of GDP. The high vector values reveals relatively high power prices in Tanzania as compared to other developing countries.

Estimates on the potentiality of the wood fuel supply differ greatly from one study to another with the exception of a few similarities As described earlier, Tanzania's renewable energy portion is predominantly biomass. This can be reflected by vector values that are very close to sustainability goal.

click here to download
(PDF: 149 Ko / 31 p.)



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