This research examines the impact of transmission expansion on a future East Africa's electricity market, to enable the five examined countries (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi) to adequately couple. As a pioneering move, we introduce nodal pricing and investigate the economic welfare arising from the planned transmission upgrade. This simulation is then compared to our simulated scenarios to propose a transmission capacity that could yield a robust integrated market. In analysing the impact of transmission infrastructure investment on the prospective electricity market, we examine the transmission investment that could yield the highest economic welfare. We argue that electricity market coupling increases efficiency in electricity trade and allow power flow amongst the countries as well as permitting high penetration of abundant electricity from renewable energy sources. The study brings a new dimension in which the five electricity markets, currently unintegrated, could benefit from cross-border trade. We base our analyses on the economic dispatch simulated through an optimal power flow model. Thus, we argue that the aggregate welfare loss arising from inadequate transmission capacity could be $0.3 million/hour while the transmission capacity of at least 200MW for all the lines yields adequate economic welfare.

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The ambitious plans of the East African Community (EAC) to provide adequate electricity in the region have continued to generate substantial interest among experts in academia, industry and government. The communal efforts to realise such targets are predicated on individual capacities and cooperative endeavour. This article focuses on a legal assessment of the EAC energy market coupling with a special emphasis on examining whether a harmonised approach is possible from two perspectives. First, practical industry concerns and, second, the legal framework within which those concerns should be addressed. This article argues that there is strong potential for a harmonised approach supported with legal convergence. One important index of success in this area would be the promotion and protection of foreign investment to ensure enough electricity supply.

The East African electricity markets are due to fully couple and embrace short term trading. Traditionally, excess generation in any country has to be bilaterally traded or delayed signing Power Purchase Agreements to avoid capacity charges. However, in recent years, with increased pressure to increase energy access in the region, the Eastern Africa Power Pool (EAPP) has been established to introduce robust bilateral and short-term markets. Price signals are critical to determining investment levels in a competitive electricity market. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the feasibility of bidding zones using clustering methodology in selected East African Countries. This paper simulates a zonal wholesale market with optimal power flow and k-means clustering theory to identify optimal bidding zones strategies and determine Nash-equilibrium prices. The results indicate that when the markets engage in the wholesale markets with planned transmission investment, the configuration of three optimal zones induces the highest welfare level. Therefore, this research informs the Eastern Africa and the African Union energy policy debate on the African Single Electricity Market and the Eastern Africa Power Pool electricity market dilemma.