This chapter 2 of my ranting on the topic of power has been slowly brewing for some time, but the events of the past week sped up this slow brewing to an explosion point. The anti-hero of this entry is UMEME, the Ugandan power distributor (and subject to many a curse around here).
To illustrate the intimacy I have recently developed with UMEME – in the past few weeks their customer line has become one of the top names on my phone calls list (ok, admittedly not that difficult since I openly dislike speaking on the phone – with few notable exceptions, UMEME among them). On this (free!) UMEME line you can report “broken wires, broken poles, house on fire, burning transformer…” (appreciate the unintended rhyme), and of course you can inquire and complain about your electricity supply. And I’ve been doing A LOT of that lately.
It all started innocently enough. Sometime in July/August we went into a regular load shedding system (programmed power cuts) I already wrote about. Shortly after that our power supply improved to only 3-4 major cuts weekly, and I was already thinking I’d have to publish an apologetic update about how undeserving was that evil picture of Ugandan power supply which I had painted.
Oh, how *totally wrong* was I.
About three weeks ago, the power supply went visibly down the hill. We started to have full 24 hours of blackout every 24 hours – and some random additional power cuts on the top of that. It seems that another private power producer switched off its 50MW generator plant because of a massive unpaid debt the government has with them (50MW might be a small number in European terms but it's nearly one sixth of the current local power generating capacity).
The erratic and unpredictable (that’s the worst part of it) power supply was the result, with more effect on your daily life than I had imagined... You cannot plan. You cannot count on anything power-related. You don’t care anymore about whether you can dry your hair with a hairdryer (you can’t anyway). You wake up and you see that you have no power when you are scheduled to HAVE power. (Just when you really need to use your computer.) You fly into a rage. You call UMEME. You can’t get through. You try five times. In vain. Your rage intensifies. Finally you get through. Standard exchange follows: We're having some problems with power distribution. – Yes, I can see that!!! – We should solve it by tonight. – But then our load shed (i.e. planned power cut) starts again! – We’re sorry about that but we don’t compensate (loosely translated as ‘screw you’). Same scenario repeated during several days. You think it cannot get any worse.
You’re wrong.
Last Saturday a huge transformer in one power sub-station burned down. And yes, just in the very sub-station which is responsible for OUR power supply. Result – since last Saturday (nearly a week ago!) we’ve had briefly power on one early morning (yesterday), during a few 10-minute spells one evening, a few erratic spells yesterday during the day, and parts of two nights. That’s all, folks.
Just in case you’re wondering – no real use in trying to call UMEME (which I’ve admittedly done about fifty times this week), because EVERY TIME you call them they tell you something COMPLETELY different (a standard UMEME strategy in any case) – ranging from “it’s solved already” to “it will take another five days to solve, and don’t count on having much power in the meantime”. Yesterday I read a press release by UMEME saying that “there was critical system damage that would require a minimum of 3 weeks of rigorous repair works and replacement of core parts.” THREE WEEKS!!!
Gahhhhh. And all this less than three weeks from an exam I had an intention to study for, activity for which a computer (and POWER) is essential.
Solutions seem far off. Private power producers who had switched off their supply seem unlikely to come back anytime soon (hardly surprising, since the government doesn’t look too keen on paying them). The first 50MW of the new Bujagali dam on the Nile should be connected before the end of the year (hopefully they mean this year) – though a government minister recently declared that the dam will produce considerably less than the announced total of 250MW of power (not sure if his declarations have anything to do with him being accused of corruption – an intent to divert attention?).
All this while the demand for power is 100-150MW above the current 300MW supply – and rising, while only 11% of Ugandans actually have access to electricity from the national grid! As more people try to connect, the supply is bound to get worse, and Uganda doesn’t look prepared to cope with the constant rise in power demand. While neighbouring Kenya tries to diversify and explore alternative power sources, such as geothermal or solar, Uganda’s main plan seems to be building new dams on the Nile. In the meantime, the impact of the pervasive power shortages on local businesses and on Uganda’s aspirations to shift towards more “industrial-based economy” is turning out to be pretty devastating.
Future is dim, lit by candles at most.
Current mood: powerless
To illustrate the intimacy I have recently developed with UMEME – in the past few weeks their customer line has become one of the top names on my phone calls list (ok, admittedly not that difficult since I openly dislike speaking on the phone – with few notable exceptions, UMEME among them). On this (free!) UMEME line you can report “broken wires, broken poles, house on fire, burning transformer…” (appreciate the unintended rhyme), and of course you can inquire and complain about your electricity supply. And I’ve been doing A LOT of that lately.
It all started innocently enough. Sometime in July/August we went into a regular load shedding system (programmed power cuts) I already wrote about. Shortly after that our power supply improved to only 3-4 major cuts weekly, and I was already thinking I’d have to publish an apologetic update about how undeserving was that evil picture of Ugandan power supply which I had painted.
Oh, how *totally wrong* was I.
About three weeks ago, the power supply went visibly down the hill. We started to have full 24 hours of blackout every 24 hours – and some random additional power cuts on the top of that. It seems that another private power producer switched off its 50MW generator plant because of a massive unpaid debt the government has with them (50MW might be a small number in European terms but it's nearly one sixth of the current local power generating capacity).
The erratic and unpredictable (that’s the worst part of it) power supply was the result, with more effect on your daily life than I had imagined... You cannot plan. You cannot count on anything power-related. You don’t care anymore about whether you can dry your hair with a hairdryer (you can’t anyway). You wake up and you see that you have no power when you are scheduled to HAVE power. (Just when you really need to use your computer.) You fly into a rage. You call UMEME. You can’t get through. You try five times. In vain. Your rage intensifies. Finally you get through. Standard exchange follows: We're having some problems with power distribution. – Yes, I can see that!!! – We should solve it by tonight. – But then our load shed (i.e. planned power cut) starts again! – We’re sorry about that but we don’t compensate (loosely translated as ‘screw you’). Same scenario repeated during several days. You think it cannot get any worse.
You’re wrong.
Last Saturday a huge transformer in one power sub-station burned down. And yes, just in the very sub-station which is responsible for OUR power supply. Result – since last Saturday (nearly a week ago!) we’ve had briefly power on one early morning (yesterday), during a few 10-minute spells one evening, a few erratic spells yesterday during the day, and parts of two nights. That’s all, folks.
Just in case you’re wondering – no real use in trying to call UMEME (which I’ve admittedly done about fifty times this week), because EVERY TIME you call them they tell you something COMPLETELY different (a standard UMEME strategy in any case) – ranging from “it’s solved already” to “it will take another five days to solve, and don’t count on having much power in the meantime”. Yesterday I read a press release by UMEME saying that “there was critical system damage that would require a minimum of 3 weeks of rigorous repair works and replacement of core parts.” THREE WEEKS!!!
Gahhhhh. And all this less than three weeks from an exam I had an intention to study for, activity for which a computer (and POWER) is essential.
Solutions seem far off. Private power producers who had switched off their supply seem unlikely to come back anytime soon (hardly surprising, since the government doesn’t look too keen on paying them). The first 50MW of the new Bujagali dam on the Nile should be connected before the end of the year (hopefully they mean this year) – though a government minister recently declared that the dam will produce considerably less than the announced total of 250MW of power (not sure if his declarations have anything to do with him being accused of corruption – an intent to divert attention?).
All this while the demand for power is 100-150MW above the current 300MW supply – and rising, while only 11% of Ugandans actually have access to electricity from the national grid! As more people try to connect, the supply is bound to get worse, and Uganda doesn’t look prepared to cope with the constant rise in power demand. While neighbouring Kenya tries to diversify and explore alternative power sources, such as geothermal or solar, Uganda’s main plan seems to be building new dams on the Nile. In the meantime, the impact of the pervasive power shortages on local businesses and on Uganda’s aspirations to shift towards more “industrial-based economy” is turning out to be pretty devastating.
Future is dim, lit by candles at most.
Current mood: powerless
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