Cross-Border Electricity Trade and Domestic Energy Security in Uganda: The Effects of Supply Unreliability on Production Costs and Consumer Prices

Uganda exports electricity to neighbouring countries while domestic consumers continue to experience interruptions in supply. This article examines the relationship between crossborder electricity trade and domestic energy security, with particular attention to business production costs and possible effects on consumer prices. It develops the supplied research proposal into a literature-based article using academic studies, regulatory publications and policy sources available up to October 2026. The review distinguishes regional modelling, firm-level evidence from other countries, Ugandan sector information and the views of manufacturers. The findings indicate that electricity trade can support regional efficiency and potentially diversify supply, but these benefits depend on adequate transmission, operating coordination and appropriate regulation. Installed generation capacity alone does not guarantee reliable delivery to individual customers. Studies of African firms associate outages with lost production and additional expenditures on backup generation, while evidence on the amount passed through to Ugandan consumer prices remains limited. The reviewed evidence does not establish that exports caused Uganda's outages; competing explanations include network constraints, maintenance needs and changes in demand. Greater transparency in export arrangements, publication of reliability indicators and targeted network investment would support more informed decisions. Future research should combine dispatch and outage data with firm-level cost and price information to assess causal relationships and the distribution of benefits and burdens. The article concludes that export growth and domestic reliability should be evaluated jointly through evidence on the entire electricity system.