Most of the people living in the western part of Libya have spent their Ramadan days in extremely high temperatures, in high humidity and in total darkness. Everyday the region experiences 2-3 power cuts, often lasting for an average of 8-10 continuous hours. 

Besides cutting off access to information through TV and Internet, power cuts cause damage to electrical appliances, especially refrigerators and air conditioners, because the irregular current flow causes blow outs to appliances.

Most of the people living in the western part of Libya have spent their Ramadan days in extremely high temperatures, in high humidity and in total darkness. Everyday the region experiences 2-3 power cuts, often lasting for an average of 8-10 continuous hours. 

Besides cutting off access to information through TV and Internet, power cuts cause damage to electrical appliances, especially refrigerators and air conditioners, because the irregular current flow causes blow outs to appliances.

“Why should I suffer from power cuts two or three times a day,” says Bashar Shaqlila, a Tripoli resident, who adds that he always pays his electricity invoices on time.  “If I lived in a country where there is rule of law, like other countries in the world, I would have been able to file a lawsuit against the General Electricity Company and I would win it because I am paying the price of a non-existent service.”

Correspondents met with Ahmad al-Shayabi, assistant to the executive manager for planning at the General Electricity Company of Libya (GECOL) to ask about the power crisis.

Q. Does the problem of electricity shortages have to do with the decrease in production capacity in Libya?

A. Yes, the power stations are distributed all over Libya. The biggest stations are the al-Zawiya station and the north of Benghazi station. The two have a combined capacity of 1,400 MW.  There is also the al-Ruwais station located at the edge of the Nafusa Mountain (western Libya) with a capacity of 800 MW.

As for the rest of the stations, there is one in Janzour, west of Tripoli, which is an old station in need of repairs and only one unit of it is producing electricity. Then there is the al-Sawani al-Ghaziya plant, south of Tripoli; al-Khams al-Bukhariya and al-Khams al-Ghaziya, east of Tripoli; the Misrata al-Ghaziya; al-Zaytouniya; and finally the al-Sareer station in southeast Libya. They all have an average capacity between 400 to 600 MW.

The quantity of electricity produced by all these stations is 5600 MW.  However, a study has revealed that demand for electricity reached  6650 MW during the Summer of 2013, which means that the deficit in production is in the range of 400 to 1000 MW.

Q. But electricity shortages are not nationwide.  What is your explanation? 

A. Under ordinary technical and climatic conditions, there is an electricity surplus in the eastern region of approximately 700 MW, because it is not densely populated and because temperatures are usually 10 degrees lower than in southern and western regions.

Moreover, the distribution of loads on the electrical network in summer leads to electricity shortages in some areas in the west and south, especially in the month of Ramadan, during which the peak hours are longer and the loads become at their highest limits from between 5pm and 7am.

The higher the temperature, the higher is the load and the lower is the efficiency of electricity generating units, and vice versa during the winter season, where there are no power cuts. 

Q. Why hasn’t GECOL solved this problem, which is getting worse year-on-year? 

A. This is mainly because the company is suffering from financial problems.  The 2013 budget of the company was not passed by the National Conference until 22 May.  It has been reduced from 4 billion ($3.15 billion) to 1.8 Billion ($1.42 billion)  dinars and this has obliged us to redistribute the different budget items and to delay the implementation of some important projects scheduled for this year.  Furthermore, there are bank-related problems such as the delays in the opening of letters of credit for contracts concluded for the implementation of projects after the approval of the budget allocations.

Q. Does the security situation have an impact on your work? 

A. The security aspect was the direct cause of confusion in the implementation of our programmes and our maintenance efforts.  Many foreign companies and foreign experts were reluctant to start maintenance work and implement existing and new projects.  Moreover, the headquarters of the company and its stations were repeatedly attacked by gunmen and in some cases some of the employees were kidnapped and threatened at gunpoint.

The company’s stores and equipment have been attacked by armed robbers and the police are unable to protect our assets  Furthermore, there is the problem of theft of electric current.  This has made the amount of wasted commercial and technical electricity reach 50%.

The total losses incurred by the General Electricity Company until July 2013 have reached 1 billion 70 million dinars ($846 million), including the damage to the public network, robbery and repeated attacks on GECOL stores and equipment. 

Q. The Minister of Electricity said that the biggest problem is the sit-ins that lead to the closure of the fuel supply lines from the oil and gas production fields.  Do you agree with him?

A. The supply of natural gas coming to electric power producing plants has decreased due to the protests, or because of some armed groups who have certain demands and resort to cutting off the supply lines.  This too has led to the decrease in the quantity produced by the electricity plants.

Moreover, the interruption of the raw fuel supply line connected with the gas in the Mellita oil has been compounded by certain citizens. If it continues, this could lead to the stoppage of the gas line, which would make the generation units of stations located in the western region stop. This would lead to continuous electricity cuts.

 Q. Are there solutions which the company will develop to reduce the impact of these problems?

A. GECOL prepared an emergency plan for the years 2013 – 2014 to reduce the existing deficit as much as possible, especially during peak periods. It has also signed a contract with the American APR company to purchase produced energy with a total capacity of 250 megawatts.

Two units with a capacity of 40 MW were introduced in the al-Firnaj station in Tripoli and 2 units with the same capacity were introduced in the Samno station.  The remaining units are expected to be introduced soon.  There is another contract with the same company to buy extra energy with 200 MW capacity.  These units are expected to start in August 2013.

The third contract signed was with the American GE company to purchase mobile gas units with a total capacity of 100 MW.  Due to the delays in opening the letter of credit, these units are expected to start at the end of August 2013.

 Q. Will these procedures solve the problem of electricity shortages once and for all?

A. We affirm that with the entry of these units, the burden will be decreased during peak periods.  However, these loads will continue during the month of Ramadan due to the significant increase in demand for energy. The reduction of these hours depends heavily on citizens’ rationalization of the energy consumption.

On the basis of the necessity of joint and focused efforts by the General Electricity Company of Libya, the citizens, the interim government and its various ministries, especially the ministries of defense and interior, which we count on to provide security for critical and strategic locations of the company, we hope that everyone contributes to ease the current difficult situation and respond to the rationalization of energy consumption. We also want everybody to know that the current limited production will end as soon as its causes are solved.

Q. How does the government cooperate with you in finding solutions to the problem?

A. The interim government has allocated 530 million dinars ($430 million) for the electricity company from the emergency budget at the end of 2012 to sign previously concluded contracts.  These were supposed to be concluded in three months in order to produce approximately 500 MW of electric power.

The prime minister signed a decision in this regard in December 2012, but when the company started to conclude contracts at the beginning of 2013, the Audit Bureau stopped the budget decision because it was issued in 2012. According to laws in force since the days of the former regime, the budget can’t be transferred to the year 2013.  Thus the budget was frozen and we had to wait for it to be approved by the National Conference.  We only got the approval on May 22, 2013.

Q. What about the Libyan state support for electricity?

A. The Libyan state supports electricity through the sale of fuel to the electricity company at a subsidized price and by paying the debts of public entities due to the electricity company.  It also pays the salaries of the company’s employees and subsidizes the price paid by citizens.  The citizen pays 20 dirham per KW ($0.15) while the actual cost is 80 dirhams ($0.60).  The state pays the difference.

Citizens in some other countries of the world pay 10 times more than the price paid by Libyan citizens: the price per KW can reach up to 4 dinars ($3.1) in some countries.

In spite of the low cost of electricity in Libya, the majority of Libyan citizens do not pay their electricity bills.  With the spread of weapons, the company’s employees do not go to peoples’ houses to collect the value of the bills as they used to do during the days of the former regime.  Company employees are often attacked while performing their job and collecting the company’s invoices. There were many reported cases. These attacks have made them reluctant to go and collect the money. Nobody now wants to do this job.