Lankan power for Uganda, Rwanda

A Sri Lankan company ECO Power Pvt Ltd with wide experience in developing mini hydro power plants is building and operating two small hydro power projects in Uganda and Rwanda in East Africa.

Company CEO Dr. Romesh Dias Bandaranaike said that they have already commissioned 10 mini hydro power plants in Sri Lanka with total installed capacity of 31 MW.

Eco Power is implementing power projects based on run-of-river hydro generation assets that are displacing fossil fuel based generation in the Sri Lankan grid (mostly diesel and fuel oil). Bandaranaike pointed out that the company that is fully Sri Lankan owned and has no foreign technical collaborators, has developed its own in house technical capabilities for designing, constructing and operating small hydro power plants. He added that they have entered the East African power generation field with 100 percent local expertise. The project to build and operate a 6.5 MW of river hydropower plant on the Ishasha River, and an associated 10km 33kV transmission line to connect it to the Ugandan grid is now underway. It will be located in Kanungu District, in southwestern Uganda and is expected to cost $12 million and will take approximately 21 months to build. The plant is designed to serve Uganda’s peak electricity demand period. ECO Power will also build the Rukarara mini hydro power project in Rwanda to be commissioned in December next year.