Guinea-Bissau: Unpaid bill punishment. Electricity turned off.

 

It’s reported that ‘The lights went out in Bissau, the capital of Guinea-Bissau, after a Turkish energy company cut off power supplies over an unpaid debt of $17 million, Economy Minister Suleimane Seidi announced on 17 October.

According to the official, the state-owned Electricity and Water Company of Guinea-Bis

It’s reported that ‘The lights went out in Bissau, the capital of Guinea-Bissau, after a Turkish energy company cut off power supplies over an unpaid debt of sau, which owes the arrears, was due to pay $15 million of the debt within 15 days.

“Karpower has agreed to renegotiate with the government to ensure that the backlog does not become a problem,” Seidi told reporters, acknowledging the arrears.

Karpowership is one of the world’s largest electricity operators and owner of a fleet of powerships supplying several African states. According to its website, the Turkish company, which is part of the Karadeniz Energy Group, has provided 100% of Guinea-Bissau’s electricity needs since 2019.

“Unfortunately, following a protracted period of nonpayment, our (floating power plant) is now unable to continue operating,” a Karpowership spokesperson said in a statement.

“We are working around the clock with officials to resolve this issue, and we aim to have generation back online as soon as possible,” the company added.

In September, Karpowership turned off the power supply to Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, due to an unpaid debt of about $40 million.’

Eighty Three per cent of population lives in extreme poverty.

Power to Africans

Africa’s energy crisis seldom makes the headlines, yet 621 million Africans – two-thirds of the continent's population – live without electricity. The social, economic and human costs are devastating.  The toxic fumes released by burning firewood and dung kill 600,000 people a year – half of them children. Health clinics are unable to refrigerate life-saving vaccines and children are denied the light they need to study. And the numbers are rising.

A kettle boiled twice a day in the United Kingdom uses five times as much electricity as someone in Mali uses in a year. The latest Africa Progress Panel report, published this week, estimates that 138 million households living on less than $2.50 a day spend US$10bn annually on energy-related products, including charcoal, candles and kerosene. Measured on a per-unit cost basis, these poor households pay 60-80 times more for energy than people living in London or Manhattan. Nigeria is one of the world’s biggest oil exporters but 93m Nigerians depend on firewood and charcoal for heat and light. On current trends, there is no chance that Africa will hit the global target of energy for all by 2030.

The region’s power utilities are notoriously inefficient because utilities are vehicles for political patronage and, in some cases, institutionalised theft. US$120m went missing from the Tanzanian state power utility last year though a complex web of off-shore companies.

Sub-Saharan Africa has some of the world’s most abundant and least exploited renewable energy sources, especially solar power. With the price of solar panels plunging, there are opportunities for firms and governments to connect millions of poor households to affordable small-scale, off-grid systems. Bangladesh has installed over 3.5m off-grid solar power systems, and the figure is set to double over the next few years. In Africa, a vibrant off-grid solar industry is poised for take-off. The only thing missing in most countries is government action to support, encourage and enable this.

Supporting the development of large-scale renewable energy is not just the right thing to do for Africa. It is also the smart thing to do on climate change. One of the symptoms of Africa’s energy poverty is the destruction of forests to produce charcoal for rising urban populations: fewer trees means the loss of vital carbon sinks.

150 years after Edison developed the light bulb, it is time to spark an African energy revolution. We do not lack the technologies to do so: all that’s needed is the vital connection of cooperation and political will.

Adapted from here

Charging or free charges

Batteries by Tesla Motors can revolutionise electricity for the world’s poorest citizens the way mobile technology disrupted the telecommunications industry. Coupled with solar panels or wind turbines, powerful lithium-ion batteries can store energy and provide electricity for people facing what’s called “energy poverty.”

“In a lot of places there are no utility lines,” Musk, Tesla’s chief executive officer, said at the introduction of itsTesla Energy products. “This allows you to go completely off grid.”

About 1.3 billion people worldwide don’t have access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency. Almost 97% of those people live in sub-Saharan Africa and developing Asia, according to the agency. Those regions could be good locations for so-called micro-grids—self-contained systems of solar panels and batteries.

Peter Asmus, an analyst with Navigant Consulting explained that if declining prices of solar panels and batteries continue as expected, “that’s the game changer.” Asmus said solar and battery systems can be used to replace dirty and expensive diesel generation commonly used in developing countries. Whether a poor community would use smaller home batteries or a shared system isn’t yet clear. In some cases, people might pay for electricity using their mobile phones. “The challenge is how do you get people to pay,” Asmus said.

Isn’t it tragic that a new technology that is not merely a game-changer but a life-changer eventually comes down to how to charge people (and make a profit) rather than provide the energy charge for free so they can go about their daily lives.

The Need for Power

20 percent of Zimbabwe’s urban households do not have access to electricity, and rely mainly on firewood for their energy needs. Across the country slightly more than three million households, 44 percent are electrified. Of the un-electrified households, 62% percent use wood as the main source of energy for cooking, especially in rural areas where 90 percent live without access to energy.

Worldwide, energy access has become a key determinant in improving people’s lives, mainly in rural communities where basic needs are met with difficulty. In Zimbabwe, access to modern energy is very low, casting doubts on the country’s efforts at sustainable development, which energy experts say is not possible without sustainable energy.

Zimbabwe Energy Council executive director Panganayi Sithole told IPS that modern energy services were crucial to human welfare, yet over 70 percent of the population remain trapped in energy poverty. “The prevalence of energy of poverty in Zimbabwe cuts across both urban and rural areas. The situation is very dire in peri-urban areas due to deforestation and the non-availability of modern energy services,” said Sithole. “Take Epworth [a poor suburb in Harare] for example. There are no forests to talk about and at the same time you cannot talk of the use of liquefied petrol gas (LPG) there due to costs and lack of knowledge. People there are using grass, plastics and animal dung to cook. It’s very sad,” he noted. Sithole said there was a need to recognise energy poverty as a national challenge and priority, which all past and present ministers of energy have failed to do.

The need for energy to improve productivity in rural areas cannot be over-emphasised but current power generated is not sufficient to support all the energy-demanding activities in the country. The country has abundant renewable energy sources, most of which are yet to be fully utilized. France has a population of 65 million people, yet it generates four times more electricity than all the 47 sub-Saharan African countries generate for their 805 million people.