Upepo Energy Center – Singida, Tanzania

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Upepo community outreach

The Upepo Energy Center is a phased, 200 megawatt wind farm in Central Tanzania. Tanzania’s power supply is barely adequate to meet current needs and is far short of projected needs.  About half of Tanzania’s electricity is generated by hydro-electric facilities and the other half is from oil and gas.  Hydro-electric output is highly variable as it is rainfall dependent and oil and gas suffer from wide price swings.

Wisely, Tanzania has embarked on an initiative that would increase the country’s integration of lower cost, reliable green energy and has tasked government agencies to advance the development of wind power and solar projects. The Upepo Energy Center is poised to be the first utility scale wind farm in the nation.

As part of its corporate social responsibility program, Upepo has already repaired a reservoir and drilled three deep water wells on the wind farm site.  Going forward, the operating project will contribute annually to a Community Trust Fund which will be locally run and will focus on local social needs including extending the electricity infrastructure, improving schools and creating, suppling and staffing health clinics.

Click on pictures below for additional information and to view larger.

This site layout highlights the turbine locations, roads and the substation for the 100MW first phase of the Upepo Energy Center.
Joint District & village meeting granting permission to Upepo to conduct wind energy research
Upepo Team keeping villagers informed
Upepo community outreach
The windy Rift Valley Escarpment in Singida, Tanzania
It is not all work - Upepo donated soccer balls and uniforms for each of the eight villages on the wind farm site.
This shallow well was the water source for people and their livestock in Msiki, Tanzania on the project site.
This new deep water well was installed by Upepo. Children are no longer drinking brown water and cholera is thing of the past.
While the Village Assembly meetings are held outside because of the large numbers of attendees, the elected officials, the Village Council, meets in meeting rooms like this one.
The team loads a SODAR unit and its solar panel onto a truck to move it to another location. The two SODAR units on site are moved periodically to provide additional wind data from multiple locations across wind farm site.
This is one of Upepo's three met masts that has been collecting wind data for multiple years at the Upepo Energy Center.

  • “Repairing this reservoir is just one example of how Upepo Energy is helping local residents. We are very pleased that Upepo is working closely with us and we are eager to see the wind farm become a reality in this community.”

    Elia Digha, Singida District Chairman, Singida District, Tanzania

  • "Life is much better and easier since Upepo installed the wells and gave us clean water all year long. We have far less illness; we have water even in the very dry times and we can irrigate nearby crops improving our harvests substantially.”

    Mwanahmisi Juma, Singida District, Tanzania