Lights out

I am writing this in the dark. The power has gone out, the only light is from my laptop screen and the battery is running low...I better write quickly.

The power actually goes out quite frequently, sometimes multiple times in a day: sometimes they last a few minutes and other times a few hours. It has become routine to fetch a candle or flashlight and to prepare dinner in the dark, luckily we have a kerosene stove. Walking at night is tricky but when the streetlights are out it can be treacherous: the sidewalks are in bad condition; there are open sewers; puddles of raw sewage, missing manhole covers, etc.  Luckily however, the Nokia cell phones in the country come with a flashlight! I use it on daily basis.

Businesses are one of the groups that are hit the hardest by these blackouts as they must invest in generators and diesel or risk losing business. These power interruptions have probably cost the Ethiopian economy millions of dollars in lost productivity – case in point: every time the power goes out my coworkers lose their work on their desktop PCs. The generator quickly comes back on but they need to restart whatever they were working on – I helped them by putting their ‘Auto save’ function to 1- minute.

I have discovered that these are not just random events, but rather unannounced rolling blackouts that have become regular routine by the Ethipoian Power Agency as they balance the fine line between power production and consumption. Back in 2009 they brought in mandatory, planned blackouts across the City and many residents fear that the same thing is coming again: recently factories have been given orders to cease activities during peak energy periods (4pm-6pm). At least when it is planned you are able to adjust your schedule accordingly.

The surprisingly thing about these blackouts is that there is supposedly ample energy produced in the country, in fact they are supposed to begin exporting electrons to Sudan this month. All the energy produced in the country is from Hydroelectric dams which when operating at peak capacity should leave the lights humming year round, unfortunately there have been major issues with them.  The newest and largest of the facilities is not operational, while the others are operating at a fraction of their capacity.

Irrespective of this, the Achilles heel of the electric system is their aging transmission grid - a similar problem being faced by jurisdictions around the world. It doesn’t matter how much power is produced if the transmission lines aren’t able to handle the load, sort of like hooking a garden hose to a fire hydrant. These aging lines are inefficient; shedding as much as 40% of their electrons en-route to homes and businesses. There are projects underway to upgrade the grid but such projects are notoriously expensive and time consuming to construct.

It doesn’t look like there will be any immediate remedies to power outages that plague Addis Ababa, but on the bright side they celebrate ‘Earth Hour’ everyday. If you are planning a visit in the near future bring a flashlight and plenty of batteries.