Abstract
Tanzania is among the countries with the fastest growing economy in Africa and therefore the need for affordable, clean, and most importantly sustainable electrical energy to meet her ever growing demands is pressing. In recent years, the country’s electricity needs have been largely dominated by thermal generations despite the fact that Tanzania is gifted with huge hydropower resource potential approximated at 38,000 MW with only a very small portion exploited to date. However, the exploited potential is expected to grow by commissioning of identified large and medium-scale hydropower projects with a total installed capacity of 4,765 MW currently under various stages of implementation. Moreover, the geographical location of Tanzania has several benefits to support development of small hydropower projects essential for appropriate utilization of available water resources as a way of mitigating climate challenges effects. Over the last decade, the country electricity demand along with end-use of energy has witnessed significant increases as economic development spreads towards achieving Vision 2025 goals. Proposed hydropower developments are projected to have enormous benefits in the acceleration of economic growth while contributing to greenhouse gas emissions reduction. In this paper, hydropower, which is one of the domestic options for clean energy development path, its present and future potential status, and water resources are explored based on a comprehensive review of energy sector relevant documents and polices.
Highlights
Access to clean, affordable, and reliable energy coupled with its impact on mitigating the drastic effects of climate change due to human activities is one of this era’s most serious concerns in the quest for increasing prosperity through sustainable economic growth
It can be noted that, in order to sustain the continually growth in an annual electricity demand, the indigenous renewable energy resources ought to be included in the pursuit of sustainable energy alternatives
It is clear that Tanzania, as a lower income country determined to achieve middle-income status, needs, amid other actions, to advance its electricity supply through utilization of locally available resources to meet her ever growing energy demands
Summary
Affordable, and reliable energy coupled with its impact on mitigating the drastic effects of climate change due to human activities is one of this era’s most serious concerns in the quest for increasing prosperity through sustainable economic growth. It can be noted that, in order to sustain the continually growth in an annual electricity demand, the indigenous renewable energy resources ought to be included in the pursuit of sustainable energy alternatives. Hydropower continues to remain the most efficient technology for electricity generation with the expectations of further improvements in future [5, 6] In pursuing her quest to attain a middle-income economy status as envisioned in its Development Vision 2025, Tanzania faces huge tasks of meeting energy needs due to the high expectations in growth to fuel the economy and at the same time minimize environmental challenges [1, 7, 8]. Hydropower which is one of the domestic options for clean energy development path, its present and future potential status, and the water resources are investigated in detail for Tanzania based on a comprehensive review of energy sector relevant documents and polices
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