Rwanda is roughly 6.5 million acres in size. Half of its roughly 200MW of total generating capacity comes from hydro and solar, the other half coming from natural gas and biomass thermal generation. To replace existing thermal generation would be ~12k acres of solar, and another ~12k acres for every additional 100MW in solar generating capacity desired (or inter connectors to other grids in the region). I also assume that rooftops are available for solar.

Their current generating capacity is not coming close to meeting their needs, with around 85% of it's energy use coming from firewood.

Your point is taken. I think it's incredibly valuable the fuelwood used for cooking and lighting is deprecated for off grid solar solutions, not only for health reasons but to stem the deforestation Rwanda faces from it's reliance on fuelwood for its energy needs.

> ~12k acres for every additional 100MW in solar

On paper lots of things look easy. Rwanda has 12MW of solar as of now [1] and doing feasibility studies for 30MW more. Feasibility studies, not ongoing construction. For one reason or another, they don't find it that easy to install hundreds of MW of solar.

On the other hand, it doesn't look like this green light for nuclear technology is directed towards power generation. Russia will provide a 10MW reactor, but it appears Rwanda is more interested in non-energy applications, like medicine, or food sterilization.

[1] https://www.mininfra.gov.rw/index.php?id=85