Infrastructure Adequacy for Electricity Trading in East Africa

A well designed, managed, reliable and adequate electricity generation and transmission system infrastructure is essential for inter-country electricity market integration. This paper tracks progress in establishing the infrastructure needed to facilitate electricity trading in East Africa common market since its formation in 2010. Using data on electricity infrastructure development targets set in the EAC electricity infrastructure Master Plan 2013- 2023 and the actual infrastructure delivered by 2022, we conducted Earned Value Analysis (EVA) for generation and transmission infrastructure projects. This aimed at establishing whether the completed infrastructure can adequately facilitate electricity exchange across EAC market. 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 establishing 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 a set of merit-order conditions that can guide iterative planning to synchronize generation infrastructure with cross-border infrastructure for trade efficiency.