Burundi Energy Situation

 

1.1 Energy situation

Burundi is a small, low income, densely-populated, landlocked country. The national income per capita is about $140, one of the lowest in the world. About 90 percent of the population lives in rural areas, although the urban population has grown rapidly in the past decade. According to the African Development Bank, 81 percent of the population was below the international poverty line of US$1 a day in 2006. Most of the rural population depends on subsistence farming and livestock for their livelihood and has only marginal involvement in the monetized economy. It is only in the last three years that private consumption has grown in real terms.

Burundi`s energy consumption relies to a great extent on biomass. Households are the main consumers of energy in the country, accounting for 94% of total consumption. Their needs are almost exclusively met by traditional biomass (99%). Electricity (0.3%), and oil products (0.4%) play an insignificant role.

If industry and transport is included, 94% of all energy consumption relies on biomass, which is composed by around 70% of fuel wood, 18% of agricultural residues, 6% of charcoal, and 1% of bagasse.

A key feature of the power sector in Burundi is the very low level of electrification. Total connections to the REGIDESO network have increased by about 10,000 since 2000 and now stand at about 41,000. Out of these 34,700 connections belong to households. That means that only 2% of the 1.6 million households in the country is currently electrified. Some 27,000 of these are located in Bujumbura, where the electrification rate is approximately 50%. Only 8,000 households (0.5 %) in the rest of the country are electrified. Even in electrified cities the connection rate is generally less than 10%. The average consumption of electricity in Burundi is 23 kWh/cap/year which is one of the lowest in the world (in Germany it was 7,442 kWh in 2004).

A key problem of the whole energy sector of Burundi is the scarcity of technical and management skills which affects the prospects for developing the country's energy resources, and it also reduces the scope for effective policy-making and the planning and operations of energy producing, marketing, and consuming institutions.

     Energy Carriers:

Fuel wood:

The high population density combined with an inefficient use of biomass (three stone fire cooking) makes fuel wood increasingly scarce and puts reforestation efforts in competition for land with agricultural production. It is estimated that trees cover around 200,000 ha or 7% of the country's total land area. This includes natural forests (around 130,000 ha), woodland savannah and tree plantations. Wood consumption is estimated to be 6.4 Mm³ per year or around 3 kg per day and person. It is significantly more what a sustainable management of the 200,000 ha tree area would allow. Thus, there is clear evidence that the forest area is continuously depleting on a national level although data related to forestry and fuelwood are very poor.

A potential partial substitute for firewood could be peat although the resources are limited. Dried peat is either used directly or processed to peat charcoal. Peat reserves are estimated at 100 to 150 million tons, 57 of which are considered economically exploitable. The use of peat was promoted by the Burundian government for quite a long time, because it is – beside fire wood – the only natural energy resource in Burundian soil. It is, however, not very well disseminated in the country and mainly used in government institutions like army camps, prisons, etc. and by a very limited number of private companies like bakeries. The annual production of peat during 2006 was only 4,871 tons, a quantity, which could even not satisfy the demands of the army which is the main peat consumer. However, potentially peat could cover a substantial share of Burundi’s energy demand for several years. Environmental aspects of peat production and consumption need to be considered carefully.

Petroleum products:

The consumption of commercial energy is very low with only 14 kg oil equivalent or 163 kWh per year and capita (2001), one of the lowest in the world. Petroleum products (crude oil, LPG) account for 2,5 % and hydropower for another 2,5% of the energy consumption. All petroleum products (70 – 85 kilotons per year) have to be imported and transported over at least 1,400 km through neighboring countries before they reach Burundi. Consequently, petroleum is comparatively expensive and a high burden on the national budget. The market price for Diesel and Gasoline is around 1.20 US$ per liter. Petroleum products are used for transportation, for industrial purposes and for power generation in diesel run thermal plants.

The utility REGIDESO owns a 5.5 MW diesel power plant acquired in 1995, which has been mostly idle due to the lack of funds to pay for the fuel. The average cost of thermal (diesel) electricity is approximately USD 0.33/KWh, while the average sale price was 88.5 BuF/KWh (USD 0.075) in 2007. The thermal plant has been used as back-up in case of hydropower production failure. More recently, and in the face of the increasing supply deficit, the Government has decided to operate the thermal plant as a complement to insufficient hydropower supply, and to assist REGIDESO in meeting the plant’s high operating expenses.

Standalone diesel generator sets and inverters are also in use, but are mainly limited to hotels, lodges or public institutions (military camps, hospitals, schools) and rich individual households.

Hydropower:

Hydropower is the most important technology for power generation in Burundi, representing 95% of the total national generation capacity. Most of the electricity supply is generated by seven REGIDESO hydroelectric plants with a combined installed capacity of 30.6 MW. Two plants deliver 85 percent of the National supply: Rwegura (18 MW) and Mugere (8 MW). Burundi also benefits from imports from the regional hydro plants of Rusizi I and II, which are operated by Société Nationale d’Electricité (SNEL), and SINELAC, respectively. Currently, these imports account for 40% of the electricity consumption. DGHER operates 5 (other sources say 8) small and micro hydro plants in rural areas while non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and some nonprofit organizations like churches operate another twelve micro hydro plants. At least 40% of them are out of service or in urgent need for being rehabilitated.

Bagasse:

Up to 10% of Burundi’s electric power is generated from bagasse a by-product of the sugar industry based on co-generation technology. The bagasse is used as feedstock to produce both process heat and electricity. As a result of extensive use of co-generation in Burundi, the country's sugar industry (SOSUMO) is self-sufficient in electricity and can sell excess power to the national grid.

Electricity supply:

Burundi faces severe constraints in electricity supply. The supply deficit currently varies between 12.9 MW during the wet season and 23.5 MW during the dry season when the country’s main hydropower plants are running at reduced capacity. The deficit in the power supply leads to frequent outages (on average 12 days a month). A large percentage of firms in Burundi have their own back-up generator, or share access to one. Back-up generators typically cost US$0.40 to US$0.50 per kWh to run, cutting into business profits and reducing the ability of local business to compete in regional and international markets. The impact of power cuts is considered one of the key hurdles to economic growth. Demand for electricity is expected to continue to rise steadily as the economy improves, returning refugees re-establish themselves and standards of living increase. Peak demand occurs during the evening hours and emanates mainly from household lighting needs.

Due to the lack of maintenance and the supply deficit described above, the quality of service and operations is currently insufficient, with estimated technical and non technical losses of 20-30 %. Technical losses are deemed to make up a large portion of these losses given the poor condition of the network, of the high voltage and medium voltage stations, and of the low voltage distribution posts. The numbers of power interruptions are high both on Low Voltage and on the High Voltage/Medium Voltage (HV/MV) backbone network. The quality of the electricity delivered suffers from poor frequency and significant voltage deviations The Lack of adequate system earthing and protection functions cause occasional high voltage surges the result of which is that consumer equipment and appliances are destroyed.