Medreg Draft Report

Sept. 2012

Portfolio committee on Electricity

Foreground

COMESA has recently established an Energy Programme to promote regional cooperation in energy development, trade and capacity building. The programme is proposed to harmonize energy policy and regulatory frameworks through preparation of model policy and regulatory guidelines for the energy.

Furthermore, a Regional Association of Energy Regulators for Eastern and Southern Africa (RAERESA) has been established. The objective of the Work Programme of RAERESA is to give direction and impetus to the Regional Association of Energy Regulators for Eastern and Southern Africa (RAERESA) and to enable it to commence work to meet its mission and objectives, as set out in its Constitution, and which can be summarized as: capacity building and information sharing; development of energy sector policy and regulatory guidelines and fostering inter-regional co-operation in energy regulatory matters. )

Based upon the RAERESA work programme 2010-2011, four main pillars have been assigned to be examined and evaluated, as follows:

• Pillar 1: Capacity Building and Information Exchange:

Objective: To build capacity and share information to facilitate energy regulatory capacity among members at both a national and regional level, and to promote and support the development of independent energy regulators wherever these are not presently established.

• Pillar 2: Legal and Regulatory Framework Harmonization:

Objective: To enhance the increasing integration of energy systems and energy trade in the COMESA region and beyond.

• Pillar 3: Development of Baseline Energy Database:

Objective: To facilitate the development of recommendations on issues affecting the economic efficiency of energy interconnections and energy trade among members.

• Pillar 4: Development of an efficient and effective secretariat & RAERESA communication:

Objective: To promote the attainment of RAERESA mission and objectives in an efficient and economic manner.

• Finally, Pillar 5: Meeting of RAERESA – Portfolio Committees and Annual general meetings:

Objective: To promote the work of RAERSESA and to provide the means of effective decision making and to ensure its objectives are met and its mission fulfilled.

In compliance with the aforementioned work plan, the committee on Electricity conducted this report (Accessibility & Affordability of Electricity in COMESA Region) to study the status of each member country based on:

• Electricity access indicators (access, reliability and quality of supply, ..etc).
• Adequacy of transmission and distribution networks.
• Practices for energizing isolated regions.
• Distributed power generation.
• Regulations for mini and micro grids.
• Affordability.
• Constraints for improvements.
• Exiting policies and plans to improve access as well as affordability.

A survey form questionnaire has been developed and organized. This questionnaire aims to facilitate the preparation of a report on the status of accessibility and affordability of the electricity in the COMESA region. The questionnaire is comprised of four sections. The first two sections deal with each country’s general information and electricity system. The last two sections deal with the accessibility and affordability data.

The reference date for the data requested for this questionnaire is Jan., 2010 unless otherwise is mentioned.

Sections-1: (Country’s General Information)

-Population and Area

-Population with physical access to electricity

-Gross domestic product (GDP) and per Capita

-Electricity consumption per Capita

-National Agency for statistics

Sections-2: (Country’s Electricity System)

-Shape of the power system network

-Type and Status of Service Provider

-Structure of Electricity Market

-Basic information on:

Generators, Transmission systems, and Distribution systems

-Type and method of reading of electricity consumption meters

-Method of monthly electricity consumption billing

Sections-3: (Accessibility & Affordability Data: Electricity access for residential consumers)

-Population with Electricity Access (Urban, Rural, and remote areas)

-Documents, procedures, and time needed to get electricity access

-Barriers hindering access to electricity

-Calculations of SAIFI and CAIDI

-National programs for expanding electrification

Sections-4: (Accessibility & Affordability Data: Electricity affordability for residential consumers)

-Agency or institution responsible for deciding the tariff

-Process of tariff change and bases for its design

-Applied residential electricity tariffs

-Residential sector Consumption & Revenue data

-Tariff coverage of the cost of service

-Subsidy lifting

-Percentage of breakdown of energy consumption among different sectors

-Percentage of Collection of electricity consumption bill and Electricity Theft

-Average of Electricity cost of supply for residential consumers

-Share of electricity consumption costs in the annual expenditures

The report contents are as follow:

Chapter 1Country’s General Information and Electricity System (Report Findings and Analysis)

Chapter 2Accessibility & Affordability Data (Report Findings and Analysis)

Chapter 3Conclusions and recommendations

Appendix ASurvey Model (English)

Appendix BSurvey Model (French)

Chapter 1

Country’s General Information and

Electricity System

Chapter 1

Country’s General Information and Electricity System

To assess the accessibility and affordability of any country to electricity, a clear understanding about the country’s population and area as well as its electricity system infrastructure is essential. This understanding will facilitate the establishment of a strong possibility for accessing electricity, with lower cost, either at the national or regional levels through interconnection.

This chapter reports the outcomes of the distributed survey regarding country’s general information and electricity system based on information received from ten countries. These countries are:

Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mauritius, Swaziland, Malawi, Kenya, and Sudan.

It’s shownfrom Figure 1 that countries like Egypt, Ethiopia, and Congo have large population (nearly 78 Millions), whereas other countries have lower population (nearly 20 Millions). Swaziland and Mauritius have the least population among the mentioned countries (nearly 1.3 Millions). On the other hand,from Figure 2 Congo has the largest land area (around 2,400,000 Km²), whereas the other countries has lower areas (around 1,000,000Km²).Mauritius and Malawi is considered to have the least areas. Considering Figure 3, Egypt and Mauritius have the highest percentage of population whom has physical access to electricity (99%), whereas the other countries don’t exceed 42% of the mentioned percentage. It is clear that Malawi has the least percentage of the population whom has physical access to electricity (8%). Therefore, neither the land area nor population level can give an indication for the accessibility to electricity.

Figure 4 shows that Mauritius has the highest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per Capita (8,235 US$), while Egypt and Swaziland have lower values (5,691 US$ and 3,331 US$ respectively). Other countries don’t exceed a GDP of 1,000 US$ and Congo has the least value of GDP per Capita which is 101 US$.

Considering the electricity system data provided, most of countries have the power system connected in a unified network. Eritrea and Madagascar are the two countries with non-unified network and their power system can be shown from the data.

It is also shown that all the mentioned countries have a single buyer electricity market structure except Madagascar which has a competitive electricity market structure.

The data also contains the used ways of paying the monthly electricity consumption bill are mainly by cash at home, cash at service provider office and vendors for prepaid tokens and vouchers.

Furthermore, most of countries are having, or planning to have future plans, for investment in the renewable energy technology in order to increase the total generated energy. Also, the investments in hydro and thermal technologies are included. However,Swaziland, Malawi and Eritrea don’t have existing or future plans for renewable energies technology.

Since the mentioned countries have different market structure, the type of service provider will differ. Accordingly, the type of the service provider can be either public provider only such as Swaziland, Malawi, Mauritius, Eritrea, and Ethiopia, or mixture between public and private providers such as Egypt. Madagascar has both public and private provider as well as mixture between both of them.

The following tables and charts contain further details about countries’ information and electricity systems.

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Chapter 2

Accessibility & Affordability Data

Chapter 2

Accessibility & Affordability Data

This chapter is divided into two sections: Accessibility and Affordability.The Accessibility data, mainly, includes the percentage/number of population which has electricity access according to the type of area (e.g. Urban, Rural, or Remote) and fees for getting electricity access for these areas.Also, the accessibility data contains the necessary documentations and procedures for getting electricity access along with the barriers that hinder the access to electricity.Furthermore, it includes general performance indicators such as System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) and Customer Average Interruption Frequency Index (CAIDI), which are still being developed by most countries.Finally, countries that have plans to expand the electrification system are mentioned.

The affordability data, mainly, includes the agency or institution responsible for deciding the tariff and the process of tariff change as well as the bases of electricity tariff design and applied residential electricity tariffs. Also, the affordability data contains the residential sector consumption, revenue date and whether the tariff covers the cost of service or not. The percentage in case of subsidy presence and plans for lifting subsidy are also presented.Furthermore, it includes the percentage of breakdown of energy consumption among different sectors, collection of electricity consumption bill, and electricity theft.Finally, it reports the number of population in slum areas, average of electricity consumption costs, and share of electricity costs in the annual expenditures.