Industrial Power Connection in Tanzania: The Works Set the Date

This page is the industrial connection operating file: what a plant must hold, declare and pay before the utility runs a line to it and opens an account. It is not a tariff sheet.

• The load behind this file: the Dodoma concentrate plant
• Your own meter: EWURA first on captive power
• What the plant may process: copper and nickel classes
• After the certificate: the audit projects forget

As at 14 September 2026. Confirm the live tariff order and approved charges on ewura.go.tz; this file rests on the Electricity Act, 2008 and the EWURA Act Cap. 414.

TANESCO supplies, EWURA prices

The Electricity Act, 2008 makes generation, transmission, distribution and supply licensable. EWURA issues those licences, approves TANESCO’s tariff order and standard charges, and publishes the service standards the utility is measured against. TANESCO holds the Mainland network: transmission at 400 kV, 220 kV, 132 kV and 66 kV, distribution at 33 kV and 11 kV, reticulation at 400/230 V. Your application asks a licensee to build towards a point you nominate and then supply you there. The regulator connects nobody and prices categories, not projects.

Electricity is a non-Union matter. On Unguja and Pemba the supplier is the Zanzibar Electricity Corporation and the regulator the Zanzibar Utilities Regulatory Authority, under its 2013 Act. TANESCO sells into the islands in bulk through the submarine interconnectors; that makes it no retail supplier there.

Maximum demand in kVA drives everything after it

Build the load schedule first: every motor, crusher, mill and compressor with rated kW, starting method and duty cycle; a diversity factor you can defend; the answer in kVA. A figure lifted from a brochure produces nothing an engineer will seal.

The T1 to T2 boundary sits at 7,500 kWh a month; D1 at 75 kWh is domestic only. Industrial bills carry three lines: a service charge in TZS per month, energy in TZS per kWh, and demand in TZS per kVA of recorded peak. Categories are stable; the amounts inside them move with each order, so none appears here.

Gated before the application is worth lodging

Land first. Under the Land Act Cap. 113 a non-citizen may not be granted a right of occupancy: a foreign-owned plant holds its site through a Tanzanian-incorporated company, or as a derivative right issued through the Tanzania Investment Centre under the Tanzania Investment Act, 2022. Nothing is executed against a letter of offer. Test the business behind the meter against the reserved-activity list in GN No. 487A of 2025 before shares are allotted: taking a supply is not reserved, but what the supply powers may be.

Then the people. The works go to a contractor registered in the electrical class under the Contractors Registration Act Cap. 235, a foreign firm being registered for the specific project. The single line diagram, protection philosophy and earthing design carry the seal of an engineer registered under the Engineers Registration Act Cap. 63.

What the quotation actually covers

EWURA approves a standard schedule for ordinary low-voltage service connections. Above it there is no list price. TANESCO surveys the route, tests the source feeder, and issues a bill of quantities: poles and conductor, transformer, MV switchgear and protection, the metering panel, the bay at source, engineering and supervision.

Two limbs behave differently. The service line runs from the existing network to your delivery point, and its cost tracks distance. Reinforcement sits upstream: a feeder that cannot carry another 1.5 MVA needs re-conductoring, a larger transformer at source, or a new feeder altogether. That limb is where estimates jump by an order of magnitude, and the one applicants forget to ask about.

Ownership does not follow payment: the line up to the delivery point vests in TANESCO on energisation, however funded, while everything past it is yours to maintain. VAT at 18% under the VAT Act Cap. 148 sits on the quotation, with a refundable security deposit beside it. Subsidies under the Rural Energy Act, 2005 serve household access.

The sequence the desks take

1. Fix the load schedule: demand in kVA, with starting currents and duty, signed by the design engineer.
2. Secure the site and walk the route: registered title over the plot, and a corridor walked with the regional engineer before a line is drawn.
3. Lodge at the regional office: the application for supply with company papers, load schedule and site plan. High-voltage cases escalate to Head Office at Umeme Park, Ubungo.
4. Take the survey and design: and ask in writing whether the estimate includes reinforcement.
5. Accept and pay: the offer states scope, the split of works, and a validity date. Construction starts on payment.
6. Clear the corridor: compensation, road-reserve consent, and any railway or pipeline crossing.
7. Build and test your side: substation, earthing, protection and internal wiring by the registered contractor to TANESCO standards, then the inspection certificate.
8. Sign, meter, energise: contracted demand, tariff category, deposit and commissioning date go into the supply agreement; the meter is then sealed.

Papers the file needs

• Certificate of incorporation and articles under the Companies Act Cap. 212, with a board resolution naming who signs.
• TIN certificate and the business licence under the Business Licensing Act Cap. 208.
• Certificate of occupancy, TISEZA derivative right or registered sublease, with survey plan and plant layout.
• Load schedule and single line diagram sealed by the registered engineer, plus the contractor’s CRB certificate.
• EIA certificate from NEMC under the Environmental Management Act Cap. 191 and the Environmental Impact Assessment and Audit Regulations GN No. 349 of 2005, where the works are listed.
• Workplace registration under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, 2003, and the certificate under the Fire and Rescue Force Act, 2007.
• For a mine or processing site, the mineral right or processing licence under the Mining Act Cap. 123.

Wayleave is the long pole

The Electricity Act, 2008 lets a licensee take wayleave over land for its lines, with compensation to those disturbed. In practice the applicant funds and drives that exercise, being the only party with a commissioning date to protect.

Where the route crosses village land held under the Village Land Act Cap. 114, the village council and assembly are real steps with their own meeting calendars. Crops, trees and structures are valued by a valuer registered under the Valuation and Valuers Registration Act, 2016, and the schedule goes to the Chief Government Valuer before a shilling moves. Inside a road reserve, TANROADS consents under the Roads Act, 2007.

Metering, contracted demand and the arithmetic

Low voltage is metered directly, often prepaid. Medium and high voltage are metered through current and voltage transformers at the delivery point, on a postpaid meter recording kWh and the highest demand in kVA reached in the billing interval. That peak, not average output, drives the demand charge, and exceeding the contracted demand is a breach as well as a cost.

Illustrative arithmetic, not a quotation. A processing plant carries 1,200 kW of useful load. At a measured power factor of 0.80 the demand is 1,200 ÷ 0.80 = 1,500 kVA, which puts it on 33 kV with a 2 × 1,000 kVA customer substation and 2.4 km of line from the nearest feeder.

Assume the works are priced at TZS 620,000,000. VAT at 18% adds TZS 111,600,000, so the cheque is TZS 731,600,000, with the deposit on top. Correct power factor to 0.95 and the same 1,200 kW draws 1,263 kVA: 237 kVA off the demand line every month, and a smaller transformer, bay and cable at the outset. Capacitor banks are bought once; demand is billed for the life of the plant. Of those amounts only the 18% is fixed by an instrument.

Where this file stalls

• An application carrying one kW figure and no schedule, so nothing can be designed.
• A letter of offer instead of registered title, leaving the agreement without a counterparty who holds the site.
• Compensation along the route unvalued or unpaid, with construction halted at one farm.
• A 2 MVA transformer ordered after payment, its import and testing lead time never programmed.
• A certificate covering the factory footprint but not the corridor added later at survey stage.
• Internal works done by an unregistered fundi, so inspection is refused and no meter is installed.
• An island plant lodging papers with TANESCO.

What moved on the grid, and what it means for your date

The Julius Nyerere Hydropower Station at Rufiji adds nine units of 235 MW (2,115 MW installed) to the national system, and the 400 kV interconnector to Kenya ties Tanzania into the Eastern Africa Power Pool. For most applicants the binding constraint has left generation entirely. It now sits in the last few kilometres: feeder headroom, a transformer at source, a bay, and a corridor across other people’s land. An estimate dominated by reinforcement tells you where that constraint lies.

Desks this file does not replace

TANESCO owns the survey, the design, the estimate, the delivery point and the meter. EWURA owns the licence, the order, the approved charges and the escalated complaint. NEMC owns the certificate, and the audit after it is a separate obligation. The Mining Commission owns the mineral right sitting behind the plant. ERB and CRB own who may design and who may build. OSHA owns the workplace, TANROADS the road reserve, TIC the derivative right. TRA owns the VAT and the capital allowance on the substation under the Income Tax Act Cap. 332.

Zatra prepares, structures and coordinates across those desks. It does not design a network, sign a supply agreement or issue any approval, and no regulator outcome is guaranteed.

What to confirm before you act

• The current tariff order, and which category your recorded peak falls into once the plant runs at rate.
• Whether the estimate includes upstream reinforcement or ends at the delivery point, in writing.
• The validity date on the offer, since a lapsed one is re-priced at current material costs.
• Title over the plot, and whether the route crosses village land, a road reserve or a railway.
• The ERB registration of the design engineer and the CRB class of the contractor, both current.
• The contracted demand you are about to sign, and the power factor the installation will hold.
• Deposit, metering and commissioning milestones in the draft agreement, before signature.