IS THERE "LIGHT" AT THE END OF THE TUNEL FOR FREETOWN??

Ambassador...  Henry E Macaulay Minister of Energy analysis of the energy challenges in Sierra Leone.

EDSA I believe customers deserve to have their expectations regulated with patient explanation. I understand their frustration but knowledge is power. 

In electricity, we have interdependent segments and none can do without the other.

 You have Generation, Transmission & Distribution and Collection.

Generation is Bumbuna that is a hydro that uses the volume of water in a dam to turn turbines which produce electricity. It now full due to the heavy  rains and produces up to 50MW. We also have other thermal generators, 10MW at Kingtom and 15MW at Blackhall road. EDSA also recently rented 20MW from Aggreko and EGTC also has an additional 5MW or so at Kingtom. The last two are diesel whilst the first two are HFO. The diesel plants are very expensive to run and can consume over a million dollars monthly. Some of the thermal plants are undergoing maintenance right now to prepare them for the dry season operations. Even if all of them plus Bumbuna were to be working at the same time right now, it will produce 100MW. The load demand forecast in Freetown today is over 200MW so you can immediately see the gap.

Let us look at T&D. Our network is over 40 years old and I always chide people who claim they are being switched on and off because no one will risk their life to do such with such old equipment, switchgear that are decades old and faulty. Apart from being aged, the network is severely overloaded with massively new construction development that has taken place and we have not been able to improve the network quickly enough. Today, we mostly try to patch and repair and this causes frequent faults and breakdown, such as what is observed at Kamayama, Portee, St Peters, an few other places. You can see it is not out of lack of effort from EDSA but the network is overdue for a complete overhaul.   The main reason  for this unfortunate situation is the huge cost involved. It will cost over $500 million to construct new lines and install new survey stations, transformers, switchgear, etc. Government is doing its best as can be easily seen all over the Western Area with new Poles and lines being installed from Sussex to Grafton to Waterloo but it takes time and money. We need to be patient but hopefully as we see evidence of progress.

Finally let me come to the Collection. This is where we are supposed to get paid by the customers for all the generators we buy, maintenance of Bumbuna, fuel we purchase, spare parts, new network we build, transformers we buy and install, etc, etc. After suffering many problems at the hands of some bad customers who did not pay their bills and engaged in illegal connections even though what we charge for electricity is so low, we are now trying to avoid this by deploying prepaid meters.  It would however surprise many that malpractice and offences are still taking place. Illegal connections, bypass, and others, cause grievous difficulties to ensuring we collect enough money to maintain our plants and buy fuel, to repair the old network and expand on it, to give uninterrupted electricity. Most of the areas that regularly complaim of outage are the areas that have most of the problems described above. We are leaving no cuatomer behind but ask for informed criticism,  undersranding and patience.

This is the first Government that has made such deliberate investment in electricity. Someone mentioned 8 years, it took Tunisia a most 60 years to get it right. It takes an average of 5 years to build a hydro and 2 years to build a thermal but it can easily rake you 5 years to find the funds. Today all Government's try to attract the Private Investors but they will not come if you have a health crisis or if you are not charging enough for electricity. They will be concerned about how they will recoup their investment. All of these are challenges Government is doing its best to overcome and there is overshelming evidence of this. What is the percentage of customers with electricity complaints today? Seriously? If this is electricity democracy, then the satisfied customers will easily carry the day. Yet I repeat, we will leave no customer unserved. This is our Mantra.

Light is Right but Electricity is also everybody s Business. 

It is a Partnership, Government does its part and the People do theirs. This must be our Vision and our Mission

At another oportunity, I will talk about the Provincial Electrification programs of Government and the off grid Solar initiatives for all our Rural Communities. Sierra Leone is not Freetown.  

Thanks for reading and God bless us all. HM 

Forgive typos.

👆🏾👆🏾 Ambassador...  HE Macauley...  Minister of Energy.

Culled from a WhatsApp group

{Courtsey: Zacaria Dainkeh's FB Post-