No doubt, electricity can change livelihood of rural poor. Indeed, if they can easily get the energy to listen to the radio, to charge mobile phone which allow them the get information from towns, for example about market prices (
http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/05/enhancing-market-information-really.html) . More an more development project try to get smartphones into rural area, giving farmers access to internet and to apps that allow them to access the weather forecast or agricultural best practices.
Access to electricity also allows to industrialize, work longer at night, allowing children to learn after dark, power the water pumps for irrigation.
Ethiopia is the water tower of East Africa and has potential to produce huge amount of electricity from hydro-power, and develop the rural area by electrifying even relatively remote areas (which for example is the current strategy for rural India to lift the rural poor out of poverty). Also Ethiopia is developing huge hydro power plant, such as the Renaissance dam (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Ethiopian_Renaissance_Dam ).
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| The Renaissance dam (image from http://grandmillenniumdam.net) |
Whatever the negative impact of hydro-power plants can have on the environment, on displaced people, they are also a promise for a better future for many rural poor who suddenly could get electricity.
It sounds like a promising bright future for Ethiopia, but the reality looks quite different. Last week the English version of the Ethiopian Reporter published an article on current power cuts and an in depth description of the power sector in Ethiopia. It explains why despite all these positive development why it is not such a promising future for rural area and why we face power cuts on daily base in urban areas : a result from increasing urban demand, subsidized local price and huge exports to neighboring countries...
- Saturday, 29 September 2012
- By MERGA YONAS
By Merga Yonas
Ethiopia, a
country known for its immense hydro-electric power potential is often is
often quoted widely as the ‘Power House of Africa’. The potential is
not only in hydropower; geothermal energy generation is also considered
as a prospect. In view of that, in recent times the Ethiopian government
has engaged itself in the generation of hundreds and thousands of
megawatts of electric power.
To the surprise of experts and observers the axiom that Ethiopia is the
power house of Africa has not been practically realized on the ground.
Reports show that in 2009 less than 10 percent of Ethiopians had access
to electricity and the country was plagued with power outages.
Thus,
in order to overcome this situation, the Ethiopian government has been
embarking on building dams and generating electric power. In this
regard, the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) anticipates to increase
power to over 10,000 MWs by 2015. Since 2009, the Ethiopian government
has completed projects including the Gilgel Gibe II Dam (420 MW) and the
Tekeze Dam (300 MW) and in 2010 the Tana Beles Dam (460 MW) was
inaugurated. With Gilgel Gibe III now under construction and expected to
be finished in 2013 providing another 1870 MW, the largest project that
is being undertaken by the Ethiopian government is the Grand Ethiopian
Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile which is projected to produce 6000 MW
when fully completed in 2017.
According to the Ministry of
Energy and Water Resources, the government of Ethiopia has undertaken
feasibility studies to launch a new project again on on the Blue Nile
basin in the area called Mendaia (200MW), Beko Abo (2100MW), and Karo
Dodi (1,600MW). Meanwhile, other feasibility studies are being carried
out for projects on the Tekeze River and on the Dedessa River to produce
450MW and 301MW respectively.
Despite the already completed and
the massive hydroelectric project being undertaken in the country, power
demand in Ethiopia is faced by power outages. Besides this, the country
plans to export power to Sudan, Kenya, Djibouti and even Yemen or
Egypt.
Experts in the field argue that the distribution network
in Ethiopia is being rapidly expanded with currently electricity being
subsidized in the country. In order to repay the loans for dam
construction, electricity tariffs would have to be increased, which in
turn would reduce electricity demand per capita, which is already low
due to the high level of poverty in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Electric
Power Corporation (EEPCo) has also predicted the power demand of the
country would increase from 15 percent to 20 percent per annum.
Recent
reports also show that Ethiopia has started exporting electricity to
Djibouti, charging 70 dollar cents for a kilowatt hour (kWh), much
higher than Ethiopia's rates that are pegged at 0.065 dollar cents. Over
the past five years, the Ethiopian government had obtained close to 64
million dollars in grants from various sources to finance the
transmission lines to Djibouti.
Ethiopia has also made an initial
agreement with Kenya and Sudan to export to them 200MW and 500MW
respectively. These projects that interconnect Ethiopia with Sudan and
Kenya are being carried out with a multi-million dollar donation from
the World Bank (WB).
The bottom line is that with all these plans
of generating and exporting power, the local demand has been sky
rocketing. Families, business owners, health stations and industries
have been complaining regarding the excessive and unwarranted power
blackouts.
In return, this power cut is followed with
undesirable consequence, some among the public contend. These include,
household equipment loss, threat on the life of patients, and from
technological apparatus suffering exhaustion to the production
interruption in some factories.
In Addis Ababa, areas like Gulele
sub-City, Arada sub-City, Kirkos sub-City and other places have been
facing similar predicaments. Residents in these sub-cities have been
risking their daily routine due to the blowing up of transformers that
leads to over 10 day power blackout as well.
Power cut has been
continuing for the past two to three months. “Power will be out in the
morning and might be back again in the afternoon then it might be out
again for the whole night, Aytenew Debebe, a resident in an area called
Sebseba Aderash located in the Gulale sub-City told The Reporter.
Aytenew, though could not file this complaint to the responsible body,
left the matter to the landlord who rented him the house assuming that
he is the one who must complain.
However, he related how the
response from EEPCo and the continuing power cut has been imposing great
impact on him. Though the problem is technical, an employee of EEPCo
came once in a while to fix it, but the next morning the problem is
still there, Aytenew told The Reporter.
Aytenew, who is studying
for his master's degree in Human Right at Addis Ababa University, said:
“This morning until 8:00am there was light, but until now (2:00pm in
the afternoon) I’m in a blackout.”
“I use computers [desktop]
which don’t operate without electricity, Thus, while I want to stay home
to work on various matters related to my study, I get pushed to use it
out of my home because of power cuts,” Aytenew told The Reporter.
He
noted that the power blackout has been creating “inconvenience” on his
study. If there is light at night he says that he is forced to buy
candles to get home, and sometimes he gets irate when his electric
divider burns out due to power interruption. “These scenarios have been
highly affecting me,” he says.
From Sidist Kilo down to Amist
Kilo, located in the Gulale and Arada sub-City, the public has been
facing persistent power cuts for about 10 days and after informing EEPCo
for maintenance it took them more than a week to come and fix the
problem, a resident of the area who requested to remain anonymous told
The Reporter.
One transformer has been allotted to 500
households; thus considering its obsolescence and the responsible body
remaining latent, solutions yearned for by the residents in the area.
After
repeated requests to change the transformers there is still no
solution to the problem, the source explained. As a final attempt, the
resident of the area signed a petition comprising 142 voices and filed
it to EEPCo but still there is no solution.
At least, on a daily
basis, there is a moment when the power blackout stays for over five or
six hours, which could spoil the freshness meats and cheeses, Belete
Ayele, salesman and purchaser at Central Super Market, located at the
traffic junction of Wollo Sefer on the African Avenue Road, told The
Reporter.
There are times when the supermarket ends in loss of
power that makes unable to grind meats and cut cheeses, Belete said.
Every day the supermarket stores about 100 kilograms of meat; thus when
faced with power outages over four kilogram of the meat would go
completely out of use.
Belete, in his late 40s, and living in
Bole Gumuruk off the Ring Road, told The Reporter that a month back his
television set became a victim of the power cut, which cost him 80birr
for maintenance. Likewise, there are cases around my neighbors where
three refrigerators and some television sets became obsolete, Belete
said.
Recently, industries in the country and EEPCo have
discussed how to use the electric power, as the problem to some extent
still exist, Muluken Haile, general manager with Ethiopian Association
of Basic Metals and Engineering Industries (EABMEI) told The Reporter.
Yes, there are cases where the power outage causes industries with large
amount of finance and in material loss as well, Muluken added.
During
EABMEI stakeholders meeting held at Hilton on April 10, the association
put forward in its presentation where power interruption is causing
severe and expensive technical problems among other issues that the
basic metal industries are facing. Thereby, the paper proposed as a
solution that EEPCo should inform in advance to basic metal industries
even when the short power interruptions occurs. Their (EEPCo’s)
operation personnel need to recognize this, the paper concludes.
Repeated attempts made by The Reporter to contact officials from EEPCo was unsuccessful.
