Nearly a quarter of the electricity produced in Cape Verde by Electra was again reported lost throughout 2022, according to provisional data from the state-run company.
According to Electra’s operational data for this month, from January to December 2022, total electricity losses reached 114.5 GigaWatt-hours (gWh), equivalent to “24.4% of national production. Overall electricity losses, technical and non-technical – mainly theft -, nationwide, reached 112,432 GWh in 2021, then representing 25.5% of production, still down from the 26.1% given as lost in 2020.
Luís Teixeira, Electra’s CEO, had already admitted earlier this year that energy theft and fraud are jeopardizing the sector’s sustainability, lamenting the Justice’s delay: “Electricity losses, especially losses related to theft and fraud, the issue of energy efficiency, are one of the main challenges that the electricity sector is facing today. We are talking about a problem that is jeopardizing the entire sustainability of the sector, but I would say more: of the country.
According to the responsible, “all these problems will impact the final price of the consumer, businesses and families.
As a comparison, Luís Teixeira explained that these losses, added together, “are more than the production” of electricity on the islands of Santo Antão, São Vicente and São Nicolau, and even higher than all the renewable production in Cape Verde (just over 20% of total).
“That is, all the production of Cape Verde in terms of renewable energy we waste, or lose or is stolen in our networks. We are talking about 2.8 million contos [2,800 million escudos, 25.6 million euros], about 3.5% of the State Budget”, he emphasized. According to the administrator, Electra has resorted to the courts whenever possible, but the results are not satisfactory, with 437 people convicted and 187 acquitted: “From 2017 until 2022, we are talking about 3,840 criminal cases delivered. Of these 3,840, 1,061 have been tried, 2,779 are pending. That is, 72% pending.”
Electra produced in the entire year 2022 more than 468.9 gWh of electricity and 9.7 million cubic meters of water. To produce electricity, the country’s thermal power plants consumed 16,683,475 liters of diesel last year, 10,378,343 liters of Fuel 180, 62,541,773 liters of Fuel 380 and 51,494 liters of MDO.
Of the total number of active electricity customers, the company reports that 6,790 already have pre-paid meters.