**6. Barriers to promoting renewable energy technologies in Tanzania**

Renewable energy technologies are still perceived as "niche" energy resources by many Tanzanian. Barriers to their enhancement and development are on all levels i.e. cognitive, perceptual, policy attitudes and in the economic sphere. Renewable energy technologies are perceived by many Tanzanian as complementary energy not main, hence, still in the learning curve phase in their developments. They are viewed as relatively new, not sufficiently field proven, somehow expensive to purchase, to install and to maintain. They are often viewed as small, dispersed resources, of unstable output, and incapable of providing sustainable energy for the future. They lack base expertise, information on cost is imprecise and thus there are high impediments to possible capital investment.

The economic barriers are both real and perceived. The real economic barrier is influenced by unfair competition from fossil-fuels or conventional energy sources. Economically, renewable energy technologies project suffers from high up-front capital requirements, high interconnection costs, and lack of financing mechanisms from financial institutions e.g. commercial banks, etc. Financial institutions in Tanzania still perceive investment in development of renewable energy technologies as high economic risk; their entire economic structure is viewed as poor, with long amortization.

The general barriers for development of renewable energy technologies are summarized according to resources as follows:
