![[Uganda] Umeme moves to oil less transformers to tame rising vandalism](Uganda transformer.jpg)
[Uganda] Umeme moves to oil less transformers to tame rising vandalism
Uganda’s power distributor, Umeme has moved to the use of transformers without oil as it seeks to cut on rising cases of vandalism while conserving the environment.
According to information from Umeme, vandalism and power theft costs the company an estimate of $22 million. On the hand, the company suffers both technical and commercial losses at an estimated 13 per cent and 6.2 per cent respectively.
“Whereas technical losses reduction requires significant network investments, commercial losses are the easiest to fight,” said Selestino Babungi, its chief executive officer.
“We are shifting from using wooden poles to alternative sources like concrete poles, underground networks and transformers that do not use oil. We are already doing it in through disposing off old transformers,” Babungi said.
The tree planting done in partnership with Nature Uganda was informed by Umeme’s signature environmental conservation initiative dubbed U–Green, which is part of the company’s corporate social responsibility efforts. That saw over 1,000 trees of different species being planted. However, the company targets to plant a million trees across the country.
The U -Green initiative aims at implementing and inspiring community action on environmental conservation.
Babungi the initiative is timely since only 16 per cent of the households are connected to the national grid while only 2 per cent of the households use electricity for cooking. This means that 98 per cent of Uganda’s households use charcoal and firewood for cooking.
“This initiative will help us bridge this gap by replacing the trees cut as people are looking for a source of energy,” Babungi said.
Explaining the need for tree planting and environment conservation, Achilles Byaruhanga, Nature Uganda’s executive director said Uganda had 10.8 million hectares of forests covering about 45% of its land by 1900. He, however, said this has since reduced to only 2.5 million hectares with about 90,000 hectares of forests being cut down annually.
He said they have planted over 2.5 million in the last two years and plan to plant 5 million trees in the next five years.
“We should change our attitudes towards tree planting since Uganda depends on nature for food and earnings through tourism,” Byaruhanga said.
