Four mega buildings in Dar es salaam use a total of 12 megawatts of electricity per day, while Mtwara region use a total of 8 megawatts of electricity per day. PSPF twin towers need 5 megawatts, viva towers and uhuru heights need 2.5 megawatts each, Benjamin Mkapa Tower needs 2 megawatts.






        TANESCO officer, Felchesmi Mramba, said that “the demand of electricity in Dar es salaam is increasing due to the rapid growth of construction industry. “ TANESCO can produce an average of 1100 megawatts, and nearly a half of it is used by buildings in Dar es salaam. Dar es salam needs 450 – 500 megawatts of electricity per day.

       99% of electricity is used by buildings. I predict that in 5 years to come there will be other 10 to 20 mega buildings in Dar es salaam which demand electricity from the same TANESCO. It is a known fact that the electricity produced by TANESCO is no adequate in our country, and the introduction of buildings which demand high amount of electricity is ridiculous.

       Then what should we do? Should we stop constructing mega buildings? Should we stop using energy in buildings? Should we minimize electric devices in our buildings? I don’t think those are solutions, the solutions lies within a problem, if the problem is buildings then solution is the design of the building. Here architects can help.

       The solution is the usage of alternative energy in buildings so as to minimize the burden of TANESCO. Tanzania is not the first country to build mega buildings which demand high amount of electricity. There are many other buildings around the world which use high amount of electricity, but they tried to be a lit bit sustainable in terms of energy. The designers have tried to use alternative energy in those buildings.

      Example, Bahrain trade centre is the two towers building which are linked via three skybridges, each holding a 225kWwind turbine, totaling to 675 kW of wind power capacity. The wind turbines are expected to provide 11% to 15% of the towers' total power consumption, or approximately 1.1 to 1.3 GWh a year. This is equivalent to providing the lighting for about 300 homes.


     Dynamic tower in Dubai, The entire tower will be powered from wind turbines and solar panels. Enough surplus electricity should be produced to power five other similar sized buildings in the vicinity. The turbines will be located between each of the rotating floors. They could generate up to 1,200,000 kilowatt-hours of energy. The solar panels will be located on the roof and the top of each floor.


         I believe that our architects in Tanzania can help TANESCO in reducing the demand of electricity in buildings by using alternative energy, as those architects in Bahrain and Dubai did. Architects can help out because they have a power to incorporate the alternative energy during the design stage. By this we can continue to construct mega buildings without threatening TANESCO about construction industry. We can use sun, wind, geothermal, thunderstorm as our friends and help us to power our buildings rather than depending on TANESCO only.