Power Distribution
The largely central government owned electricity sector in Haiti referred to as Électricité d'Haïti (ED'H for "Haiti Electric Utility"), faces a deep crisis characterized by dramatic shortages and the lowest coverage of electricity in the Western Hemisphere. Only about 12.5% of the population, 25% if illegal connections are accounted for, have regular access to electricity.[3] In addition, Haiti’s large share of thermal generation (70%) makes the country especially vulnerable to rising and unstable oil prices.
Most of the electricity generation infrastructure in Haiti is very old and costly to maintain and operate.[6] In 2006, total installed capacity was only 270 MW, of which about 70% was thermal and 30% hydroelectric.[3] There are currently three large thermal plants and one hydroelectric plant serving the metropolitan area and some smaller thermal and hydroelectric plants in the provinces. The most important plants are:[3]
- Péligre, an hydroelectric plant with 54 MW of installed capacity. However, its actual power varies between 30 MW in the rainy season and 10 MW in the dry one. I suggest delete what’s in green given its recent renovations.
- Carrefour, a 50 MW thermal plant with just 12 MW of actually available capacity.
- Varreux 1 and 2, two thermal plants with installed capacities of 33 MW and 21 MW respectively which can just provide 12.5 MW.
Demand vs Supply
The Haitian electricity sector has a national installed capacity that is largely insufficient to meet a demand of 157 MW in Port-au-Prince and of 550 MW at the national level. This electricity shortage has created a situation in which tens of thousands of households and institutions (e.g. hospitals, schools, etc) have to rely on their own diesel generators and as a result spend large portions of their income on fuel to run those generators. In order to partially address this deficit, the government has signed contracts with local producersSogener, Haytrac and E-Power which are private power suppliers, for a total of about 135 MW.[3][6][8]
For the medium and long term, according to recent estimates, Haiti needs about 200 MW of new generation capacity by the year 2010 and up to 750 MW by 2020. Delete text in blue.
Distribution and Transmission Loss
The public utility Electricité d’Haïti (EDH), a member of Caribbean Electric Utility Services Corporation (CARILEC), suffers from high inefficiencies, with more than 75% estimated technical and commercial system losses.[11] This high percentage results from improper maintenance due to lack of financing; triggering incidents (e.g. fires); theft; obsolescence of information systems, which prevents proper identification of customers, billing and accounting and in turn impacts quality of service and losses.[6][12] The ratio of energy unpaid to energy produced is among the highest in the world, with an estimated 35% of the energy produced being stolen.[3] Many residents cannot afford the high costs of electricity, so resort to stealing.[13]
EDH’s financial situation is precarious. Utility bills cover less than 50% of electricity generated. In some cases, third parties install transformers to steal electricity from EDH high voltage lines and charge consumers for the stolen electricity.[9] The combined losses require an annual subsidy from the Government of Haiti of $200 million to maintain operations.(wilkipedia)
Group Citadelle (GC) has entered into discussions with a number of regions of Haiti to supply safe, inexpensive, and reliable electricity. As part of a Public-Private Partnership (PPP), GC will supply the electricity to those regions for eventual sale to residential and commercial customers. Those regions will assure that business customers obtain electricity at a rate to ensure job creation and regional economic development. With the management team possessing expertise in both transmission and distribution of electricity in addition to generation, GC will play an advisory role to the various regions for the construction of a robust and efficient grid.