Egyptians got a sour taste of what life could be like without electricity last week, when power went off for hours on end several times a day in some parts of the country. One cartoon circulating on Facebook showed a typical Egyptian family calling the electricity company to ask after its health after they had not received any electricity at all that day. The repeated power cuts that have taken place over recent weeks, particularly last week which witnessed outages lasting up to four hours in some areas and several times per day, have become a source of frustration to many people, driving activists to start a campaign to encourage consumers not to pay their electricity bills as a response to the lack of services. Last week's power outages were particularly severe on Tuesday and Wednesday, due to an inability to provide power stations with fuel. That led to the loss of 4,500 megawatts (MW) of the national grid's total capacity of 30,000 MW, according to the Ministry of Electricity and Energy (MEE). The result was mandatory power cuts imposed on several districts in all governorates and for extended periods in order to prevent the collapse of the grid. Protests broke out in different governorates, and activists on the social-networking site Facebook created pages asking people to participate in a campaign not to pay their electricity bills until the service was restored. Political parties and movements like the People's Coalition Party and the 6 April Movement announced their support for the campaign and encouraged followers to participate in what they called a “tool to stop power outages”. “Why should we pay for a service that we do not receive,” asked Ahmed Tantawi, one of the participants in the campaign. “Regardless of the reason behind the outages, it is our right to have access to electricity at all times as long as we pay our bills,” he added. Aktham Abul-Ela, deputy minister of electricity and energy, criticised the calls not to pay bills, saying that they were “irresponsible and do not take into account the interests of the country”. He told Al-Ahram Weekly that the main income of the electricity companies came from consumer bills and any shortage of income was bound to affect supply. “Consumers only pay for what they have consumed. There is thus no point in not paying bills,” Abul-Ela said. Any consumer who does not pay his bills risks having his electricity cut off, he added. Meanwhile, Mahmoud Al-Askalani, head of the Consumers Against Price Hikes Association, told the Weekly that “if the government does not commit to delivering electricity services at full capacity, we will be forced to ask consumers to refrain from paying taxes to the government.” He added that his association had decided to file a suit against the president, the prime minister and the minister of electricity and energy because of the damage suffered by consumers as a result of the power cuts. “The outages stopped fridges from working and spoiled large quantities of meat, with losses running into thousands of pounds,” said the owner of a butcher's shop in the Giza district of Haram. Similar cases applied to frozen poultry, cake and dairy shops. “Almost all kinds of business activities were halted by the power cuts,” Al-Askalani said. Students studying for exams were also affected. “The power cuts really make studying very tough, and the exams should be delayed,” said Reem Ahmed, a mother of two children in elementary and preparatory school whose exams had taken place at the height of the power outages. Ahmed said that she had sometimes taken her children to a relative's house that had electricity so that they could study properly. As a result of the situation, one political party has announced that its offices will be open to students who wish to study in them, since they have private power generators that keep electricity available all the time. Atef Yacoub, head of the Consumer Protection Agency, said in a phone interview that if easing the load on the national grid leads to power cuts, the consumer protection law stipulates that there should be a 48-hour notice. “This is a right, and we call upon the MEE to abide by that right,” he said. “The consumer protection law says that services provided to consumers should not be deficient.” Although the MEE and the Egyptian Electrical Utility and Consumer Protection Regulatory Agency had announced earlier that there would be prior notice before power cuts this summer, officials have warned that such notice could ease the activities of thieves, hindering security efforts. The repeated power cuts have led to a surge in the sale of electric generators that are mostly run on diesel, this being one way of overcoming or minimising losses due to power outages, at least in cases of emergencies. One owner of an electrical appliances shop in the downtown area said that demand for electric generators had skyrocketed over the past few weeks. “Generators are available in several capacities, with prices ranging from LE2,500 to LE50,000,” he said, adding that customers were often physicians who wanted generators for their clinics, or business people who needed to continue working during power outages. “Some customers want a generator for their apartments to keep air-conditioning units running,” he added. According to Ahmed Bahgat, a professor of electrical engineering at Cairo University, such generators need experienced people to run them properly, if they are not to harm the electrical system or the generators themselves. “Amid this growing demand for generators, there should be an awareness campaign to inform consumers of the best way to use them,” he said. In a press statement on Sunday, the MEE apologised to consumers for the power cuts, saying that these had been due to shortages of fuel such as natural gas and mazut to power stations. “We had to ease the load on the grid by 4,500 MW,” the statement said. Although the full capacity of the national grid is 30,000 MW, Bahgat said that not all of this could be used. “About 10 per cent of the total capacity is not available, even when the fuel supply is at its fullest, due to maintenance work that increases in the summer months because the heat can disrupt electricity stations and there is higher demand.” The electricity outages have been limited over recent days, as officials announced earlier this week that $200 million would be immediately allocated to prevent further cuts and secure fuel supplies to power stations. Some $525 million would also be allocated to importing fuel to run the stations over the coming weeks, they said. According to the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company, normal flow rates had been restored to supply the country's 52 power stations with about 3.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas. Some 20,000 tons of mazut had also been made available, it said, after two of the country's main gas fields had been out of service. About 65 per cent of Egypt's total natural gas production goes to the electricity sector, which consumes over four billion cubic feet of natural gas on a daily basis. In addition to efforts to boost domestic supply, the government is seeking import deals to help secure energy. These include crude oil imports of some four million barrels per month from Iraq and of 12 million barrels from Libya over the period of a year. Sherif Haddara, the minister of petroleum, was quoted as saying that shipments of crude oil from these two countries would start in early June. The minister also announced last Thursday that negotiations with Qatar were ongoing regarding shipments of liquefied natural gas. Details about the agreement suggest that 24 cargoes of liquefied natural gas, each amounting to 3.5 million thermal units, would be provided by Qatar over the next four months to secure domestic needs that significantly increase during the summer. The agreement had earlier been reported to be postponed because of unresolved legal details regarding payment conditions. Nonetheless, the new fuel import deals, along with efforts to create new electricity production, might still not be enough to keep up with growing demand, which is currently increasing by 10 per cent annually, the highest in the world, according to Abul-Ela. “Five per cent of the 10 per cent annual increase in demand is caused by illegal practices such as stealing the electric current,” Bahgat said, adding that 42 per cent of Egypt's electricity production was consumed by households, against 32 per cent by industry. “This is not found in any other country. Such home consumption of electricity in Egypt shows that waste is taking place,” he said. Bahgat said that in order to match the growing demand, the government would have to expand construction of fast-to-set-up power plants that take months instead of the usual three to five years to operate, and that it would have to consider other energy projects, including the nuclear power plant that is expected to add 4,000 MW to the national grid's capacity once it starts operation. He said that the current cost of producing one MW of power was $1 million, a significant sum amid the current economic hardships and the gaping budget deficit and shortage of hard currency that the country is experiencing. Bahgat added that one immediate solution to the energy crisis would be to ensure that fuel reaches power stations and energy consumption is rationalised. “Many lamps and air-conditioning units are left turned on even when rooms are empty,” he said, adding that consumers must be aware that turning off one unnecessary lamp or AC would make a big difference in saving energy, thus helping to prevent power cuts. Abul-Ela said that turning off one lamp in every household would save 1,000 MW. Adjusting the temperature of an AC from 18 C to 24 C would also save 40 per cent of what the cooling device consumes in electricity, he added Air-conditioning units are believed to be one of the main reasons behind the current crisis, with seven million units currently operating in the country, according to the minister of electricity and energy, Ahmed Emam, consuming about 2,000 MW of power. Abul-Ela said that the ministry was coordinating with other government departments in an effort to rationalise energy consumption in government buildings. 50 per cent of street lights had been turned off to save energy, he added. “Rationalising electricity consumption will help make these unwelcome power cuts disappear,” he said.
