1. Africa’s Challenge:
Extended Power Outages
Solution: rehabilitation of “aged” power plants
Sevgi Ceyda Şairoglu
Sabanci University
TURKEY
30 November 2011

2. Power outages - why
important?
 Power outage  interruption of normal sources of electrical
power
 Electrical power 
transportation, cooking, communication, heating, air-
conditioning, and lighting
Power outages often accompany other types of disasters
 floods, hurricanes
 Notable power outages:
- 1977 NY City blackout
- 2005 Java, Bali blackout  affected 100milion people
- 2009 Brazil&Paraguay blackout affected 60 million people
Let’s consider another type of power outage that African nations might
face in the next decades  need to take action NOW!

3. Worlwide Energy Consumption…
We are facing (and will be facing more in the future) a
more serious threat in Sub Saharan Africa related
to electricity and power outages

4. Table 1. World Electrification Rates
Urban Rural
Electrification
Electrification Electrification
rate (%)
rate (%) rate (%)
Africa 41.9 68.9 25.0
North Africa 99.0 99.6 98.4
Sub Saharan Africa
30.5 59.9 14.3
(SSA)
Developing Asia 78.1 93.9 68.8
Transition Economies
99.8 100.0 99.5
&OECD
World 78.9 93.6 65.1
Pay special attention to figures given for Sub Saharan Africa… and for a moment
imagine a day without electricity (no TV, internet, mobile phone, modern cooking
facilities, heating…). Imagine a year without electricity… Imagine your whole life burst
into darkness…

5. A man made disaster threatening SSA:
Power outages
Often the population that has access to electricity
suffers from poor supply quality
Frequent power blackouts
Table 2: Electricity Outages Average number of days of supply
of firms in Africa interruptions per year, 2000-2005
Eritrea 93.9
Kenya 83.6
Madagascar 78.0
Uganda 70.8
Tanzania 60.6
Source: Mangwende and Wamukonya (2007)

6. Power outages in SSA create one of the worst
types of poverty “Energy poverty”
Definition:lack of sufficient choice that would
give access to adequate, affordable, effective,
and environmentally sustainable energy
services that support economic and human
development.
Source: East African Community’s report “Strategy on Scaling Up Access to Modern Energy Services”

7. Table 3: Electric power transmission and distribution losses
(%of output) in African countries 1970-2001
1970 1980 1990 2000 2001
Algeria 10.7 11.7 15.1 16.3 15.7
Cameroon
5.2 7.6 13.9 25.7 14.5
Congo 4.5 31.0 18.8 65.3 69.5
Egypt 9.8 12.9 10.1 13.4 13.4
Ethiopia 6.9 5.4 10.0 10.0 10.0
Gabon 1.8 0.8 10.2 17.8 17.8
Ghana 6.1 4.7 8.6 14.7 24.0
Kenya 17.9 14.6 15.7 21.3 21.0
Nigeria 13.2 49.3 37.6 38.7 37.8
Tanzania 13.6 12.1 21.6 25.0 23.5
Zimbabwe 6.1 10.3 7.1 21.3 21.47

8. • Electric power transmission and distribution losses are largely
due to inefficiency  the losses have increased between 1970
and 2001!
• Significant amount of power plants in SSA are built in
1960s & 1970s older than 40 years
• Turkey’s General Manager of Power Generation Joint Stock
Company quotes “the average age of a power plant is normally
25-30 years and rehabilitation projects -to improve the declining
capacity and to render them for a reliable production- must take
place in aging power plants.”
• Although there are initiatives towards increasing energy access in
SSA (especially in rural areas) there is no project aiming to
increase energy efficiency and upgrade “old” power plants.

9. How to prevent the disaster
and save SSA?
• Rehabilitation programs  aiming to
increase the production capacity and to raise efficiency
• Aging facilities are no longer able to operate at full capacity
due to obsolete equipment. It is the case that “insufficient
maintenance and lack of modernization plague Africa’s
electricity infrastructure”
• “Aged” power plants need to be refurbished to be efficient
 so we can ease the electricity outage problems in SSA

10. Achievable solution & positive outcomes:
Turkey’s case:
A major rehabilitation program started in 2005 in Turkey in the thermal and
hydraulic power plants that used to operate for more than 28 years. The
program aimed to increase the production capacity and to raise efficiency by
using new technologies.  why not do this in SSA before the continent
bursts into darkness?
Outcomes:
1. African economies can achieve higher potentials of their economies 
rise in productivity, efficiency, and human capital
1. Essential step towards achieving key targets of the UN Millennium
Development Goals  “Modern energy can directly reduce poverty by
raising a poor country’s productivity and extending the quality and
range of its products- thereby putting more wages in the pockets of the
deprives” (IEA, 2002)