This year brings new opportunities for the NRECA International team! A few competitive wins allow us to continue working with longstanding partners. Take a look:
Uganda
The NRECA International team won a contract from USAID/Power Africa to help Uganda’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development/Rural Electrification Agency (REA) improve electrification expansion planning. How? By helping REA develop a comprehensive national electrification plan on strategic investments to achieve universal electrification access by 2030.
This continues the work to increase access in the country, which began more than 10 years ago, when NRECA International completed a project to update Uganda’s Rural Electrification Strategy and Plan II for the REA. Financed by the World Bank, this was the country’s blueprint that defined how electrification access is expanded in Uganda and provided a clear framework that has guided REA investments in grid and off-grid electrification expansion.
Under the REA Master Plans project funded by the USAID/Power Africa program in Uganda, in 2019 the team completed master plans for all 13 service territories. The team also developed an off-grid electrification strategy that included actively engaging private sector service providers and developers to coordinate renewable energy mini-grids and stand-alone energy solutions as part of a larger national electrification planning paradigm. Check out our work in Uganda.
Bangladesh
Our work in Bangladesh spans five decades, and today the goal of universal access is within reach. NRECA International is helping the electric cooperatives and other partners move to the next level by helping them strengthen distribution system reliability and capacity to meet the needs of a growing economy. The team recently began a new contract with the Government of Bangladesh to help them use advanced technology to offer more robust and reliable electricity to its entire population over the next five years.
Funded by the Asian Development Bank, the NRECA International team will help the Northern Electricity Supply Company Ltd. (NESCO), a state-owned distribution company to modernize its planning, operations, maintenance, and customer service. NESCO currently serves 1.35 million consumers, and that number is increasing quickly.
Working with NESCO, the NRECA team will design and implement a GIS-based management system that will shorten outages, reduce losses, and improve response to customer service requests. The NESCO team also will learn how to plan and operate the distribution network more efficiently, how to improve the quality of electricity supply, and how to use GIS and online tools to introduce new options for consumers to manage their own service. Each team will work closely together to help improve NESCO’s financial performance.