Uganda’s Ambassador to Germany, Marcel Tibaleka, held a meeting with Mr. Mauro Damonte, Senior Vice President, Power Grids Division, ABB, on the side-lines of the 11th German African Energy Forum.
The meeting that took place on 26th April 2017 at Hotel Sofitel in Hamburg was also attended by other senior officials of ABB and the Uganda Embassy.
ABB, a Swedish-Swiss multinational corporation headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland, operates mainly in robotics and the power and automation technology areas.
It is one of the largest engineering companies as well as one of the largest conglomerates in the world.
Mr. Damonte said that ABB through its Power Grids division was a global leader in pioneering technologies that help balance the growing need for electricity while reducing environmental impact as a partner of choice for enabling a stronger, smarter and greener grid.
Amb. Tibaleka pointed out that Uganda has an interest in attracting investments in modern renewable energy technologies with high deployment potentials for Uganda like biomass for cooking, hydropower, wind, and solar power.
Mr. Damonte said that although electricity was the most versatile and widely used form of energy, a considerable amount of future electricity will come from renewable energy sources like hydro, wind and sun, thereby reducing dependence on fossil fuels and lowering emissions in the long run.
He added that these renewables need to be integrated into grids that are able to manage new complexities such as intermittent supply, more distributed power generation, demand management and electric vehicles.
Amb. Tibaleka, said that exploration of the concept of a microgrid was important to see how remote rural communities in Uganda could benefit from this. He suggested that a pilot project set up in Uganda could demonstrate the ability to not only supply homesteads with electricity for lighting and cooking but enable them to pump up underground water, power agricultural machinery and coolers for milk.
Mr. Tobias Becker, ABB Head of Africa, said that ABB had opened an office in Uganda and it was carrying feasibility studies and site analysis of solar energy installation potential in Uganda. He said solar energy is the most abundant renewable energy source on Earth. Every hour, the earth absorbs more solar energy than the world’s population consumes in a year