Liberia: LEC’s Load Shedding Annoys Regulator

...LERC terms Corporation’s ‘massive load shedding’ as Unacceptable; Warns of unspecified actions if normal services aren’t restored.

The Liberia Electricity Corporation power shedding exercise, which leaves many communities waiting for power for days, most times in vain, has not only angered residents of Monrovia and its environs but has also left the national electricity regulator fuming.

The Liberia Electricity Regulatory Commission (LERC) said that the provision of electricity has become a nightmarish situation for Liberians. 

The regulator noted that it has been left frustrated by the corporation’s inability to provide electricity to Liberians who are yearning for power on a daily basis despite being obligated to do so.

The regulator, in a statement issued on Tuesday, February 15, described the LEC’s massive load shedding in its operational areas as unacceptable, and called on the LEC Management to set into motion remedies to address the electricity generation nightmare.

But LEC has indicated that it is unable to provide normal services during the dry season as it would during the rainy season due to the shortage of water supply at Mount Coffee hydro.

The LEC on December 31, 2021 published its network load shedding schedule for 2022. It stated that the decision was as a result of the decrease in water level at Mount Coffee Hydro Power Plant, which is the main source of electricity in the country.

A statement from the corporation read, “The Liberia Electricity Corporation wishes to inform its valued customers and the general public of its load shedding activities for 2022. This comes as a result of the decrease in water level at the Mount Coffee Hydro Power Plant.

However, the corporation’s load shedding, as observed, violates the minimum service levels in Schedule Two (2) of the Customer Service and Quality of Supply Regulations (CSQOSR), which ensures that duration of outages cannot exceed eight hours. “The commission therefore directs LEC to take urgent steps to curtail this load shedding,” the statement said.

The LEC, according to the statement, had on numerous occasions told the commission that it was fully capacitated to provide electricity to the population this new year due to some level of intervention that it had earmarked.

“During LEC tariff application review process, the Commission on numerous occasions expressed concerns about the seasonal variations impacting Mount Coffee power generation capacity, especially during the Dry Season, to which LEC assured the LERC that effective January 2022, it would have sufficient fuel stock to generate 29.4 MW from the Bushrod Thermal Plant complemented by power imports via the Transco CLSG arrangements during the Dry Season.

“The LERC considers LEC’s action as a complete disregard of the Commission’s regulatory authority and reminds LEC of the necessary actions at the Regulator’s disposal consistent with the 2015 Electricity Law of Liberia and applicable regulations,” it said. 

The current power shortage in the country has been a perennial problem but has been intense the last two years, especially after the full resuscitation of the Mt. Coffee Hydro.

The LEC began its dry season preparation in late 2020, after it published a “dry season Preparations 2020-2021” timetable.

This was after it boasted of a new milestone of reaching a peak demand of 47.45MW on New Year’s Eve 2020. This, the Corporation said, was as a direct result of the addition of over 27,000 new customers to the LEC system during 2020 and the recent replacement of almost 30 blown transformers thanks to H.E. President George Manneh Weah’s GOL-funded Transformer Replacement Project.

This increase in demand was to have been met by electricity purchased from Cote d’Ivoire and delivered via the much anticipated 225,000-volt CLSG transmission line, which will link the electricity systems of Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and was expected to Go-Live in December 2020.

“Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of our colleagues at Transco CLSG and their contractors, we now know that the CLSG transmission line will not now go live until end February 2021, leaving a significant capacity gap during the earlier part of the 2020/2021 dry season,” LEC said, noting that it was closely monitoring the water inflow situation at Mt. Coffee and can confirm that water inflow levels are dropping quicker than “we had hoped for.”

“Due to the delay in completion of CLSG, LEC has been forced to begin parallel operations of generation at Mount Coffee and Bushrod stations," LEC added.

The limited power output that the corporation is experiencing is not the only problem that has plagued the entity. Another major problem is power theft — a perennial situation that continues to diminish the corporation’s revenue generating capacity.

The LEC disclosed last year that commercial losses (theft and unpaid bills) account for over 50 percent of the electricity produced by LEC — a problem that is seriously threatening the financial viability of the Corporation.

This disclosure provoked the anger of the United States Ambassador here, Michael McCarthy, who warned Liberians and the Government that America and some of Liberia’s major partners may withdraw their support to the energy sector if they fail to stop the widespread power theft that is crippling the sector.

Speaking at a press conference after touring LEC’s Bushrod Island facilities in August of last year, Ambassador McCarthy noted, “If we are taking all this money from [U.S.] taxpayers and the result is that people of Liberia are living for free, eventually, our Congress will say, we are not going to appropriate any more money to that project. And I think all of the donor countries feel the same way, I will assume.”

The United States is a major contributor to the restoration of post-war electricity in the country, investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the energy sector.

Through the Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact, the U.S government spent $257 million over a period of five years. The fund primarily focused on rehabilitation of the Mt. Coffee Hydropower Plant, the largest source of power in the country and Liberia’s most valuable fixed asset. The compact, which ended in January 2021, in addition to resuscitating the hydro, supported the creation of the LERC, an independent energy sector regulator, and developed a training program for technicians in the electricity sector, among others.