**5. Renewable energy technologies (existing and new) in Tanzania**

Renewable energy technologies deployment in the country is at initial stages of development, although it is not well quantified and well documented. The energy policy focuses on renewable deployment on biomass, solar, micro, mini and small hydro power plants and wind since it was felt that technologies for this energy sources could be disseminated in short term. Geothermal, with existing potential of about 1,000 MW exploitation is considered a long term option since the cost of its development is comparably high.

The use of energy sources such as solar, biogas and LPG especially in the household sector is still low. However, awareness is growing and it is anticipated that in near future its use will increase. It is estimated that about 1.2 MWp of photovoltaic power has been installed in the past three years for various power applications of which more than 35 percent of total installed capacity is from solar home systems (SHSs). The average sales of equipment relating to SHSs between 2000 and 2005 were about 500-600 PV systems per annum. The trend of sales in recent years is growing fast.
