The blackout capital of the world

Editorial

SOMEBODY this year put the above headline in a media statement and it is hard not to agree with the sentiment given our daily experience.
PNG Power has given us the dubious honour of being the number one blackout nation on the planet.
Hardly a day passes when there is reliable power supply in one or more parts of the country.
PNG Power’s own system data indicates that cumulative blackouts in just the Port Moresby, Gazelle and Ramu Grids, accounted for over 50 full days of outages 2021.
There was a total of 161 total system outages where no part of the power system had electricity for an extended period of time – 35 of these occurred in Port Moresbt; 35 in Ramu; and, 91 in the Gazelle Grid.
Total losses of the three major grids cost PNG Power K36.2 million in revenue and customers hundreds of thousands of kina in damaged perishable goods and appliances; millions of kina in diesel to run generators.
The damage to the country’s reputation as a business destination is huge because all major investments must now factor into their cost of construction, own power supply or at least a big back up plant.
Only a few years back, in 2018 there were only two total system outages in Port Moresby and power around the country was constantly improving.
Businesses were re-joining the PNG Power grid, not leaving it.
At the Apec Summit, hosted for the first time in PNG, five countries – Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the United States agreed to jointly fund a K1 billion electricity rollout throughout the country to connect 70 per cent of our people to electricity by 2030.
One wonders whether we have even arrived at draw-down stage of that charitable offer four years later.
Electricity is as basic as roads, bridges and classrooms.
Indeed, you cannot build classrooms or health centres without factoring electricity into the costs.
Countries such as Vietnam which emerged into the world of nations later than most because of internal conflict, today is racing ahead in leaps and bounds and one of the credits for its sterling performance is that power supply is reliable, accessible and affordable to the population.
Look at these statistics again: There were in total 1,109 hours (46.24 days of blackouts in 2021.
Of these, the Ramu grid contributed 15 days, Gazelle 22.28 days and Port Moresby 9 days.
There were 3,495 instances of blackouts and that does not cover smaller centres.
Of these Gazelle suffered 942 instances,
Port Moresby 927, and the Ramu grid contributed 1,626 instances.
This is a dire statement to make but looking at these statistics and our own daily experience prompts us to say that PNG Power and electricity supply in PNG now appear beyond recovery.
The Government, PNG Power, and Kumul Consolidated Holdings need to consider this under emergency conditions.
Electricity is a key socio-economic enabler and the incoming government will do well to consider it as a top priority after July.
Time might have arrived to make power generation, power transmission and power delivery as separate entities for efficiency and reliability.