By Glycon Garcia / Published on Fri, 2009-06-12 08:35
In late 2006, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the International Copper Association, and AES Eletropaulo, an electricity distribution company, embarked as partners on an ambitious project in São Paulo, Brazil to test their integrated approach to slum electrification and loss reduction.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2008-08-07 05:30
The Pikine slum on the outskirts of Dakar is huge and growing rapidly. Today it has about 850,000 inhabitants. This figure is expected to rise to 1.2 million by 2020. This makes it by far the largest slum in Sénégal. Benoît Dôme: 'You can’t compare Pikine with Paraisópolis in Brazil, where we developed our first project. Pikine covers a much larger area but it is much less densely built up. Most people who live in the slum have moved in from the countryside to try their luck in the city.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2008-08-07 05:30
The International Copper Association has already found two partners in Sénégal that are willing to participate in a slum electrification project: the utility company SENELEC and the association PROQUELEC. The latter is a member of FISUEL, whose mission is to promote electrical safety. 'We are still looking for more partners,' says Dôme, 'but I’m confident we will find them soon. The idea is to start with a pilot project from one distribution transformer.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2008-08-07 05:30
'After initiating the project in Brazil, we wanted to start a second project, this time in Africa', recalls Dôme. 'We chose Sénégal because it is representative of sub-Saharan African income and energy requirements.'
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2008-08-07 05:30
The electricity distribution lines in Pikine are limited to the principal streets. Throughout much of the residential zones there is no official power distribution. This creates a situation that is different from Paraisópolis. 'While electricity theft is indeed a problem here, it is not the primary one. The main problem is illegal selling-on and sub-distribution,' reports Dôme. 'People who are marginally better off and living close to the main roads secure a legal connection. They then act as a sub-distributor for up to 15 families.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2008-08-07 05:30
Sénégal has virtually no experience with slum electrification projects. Benoît Dôme: 'The only exception is a project of the German Development Bank GTZ for the complete redevelopment of one part of the slum. This project included street paving, water supply, construction of schools and hospitals and electrification. It was certainly a valuable project, but it is not realistic to execute such an extensively integrated development project for the whole area at one time — that would simply be too expensive.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2008-08-07 05:30
The social aspect in the project will be very important. 'We want to cooperate as much as possible with the inhabitants of these urban zones,' notes Dôme. 'An important part of the project will be education. One part of the education programme will be the training of families migrating from rural areas who know nothing about electricity. We will teach them the basics on the use of electricity, electrical efficiency, and electrical safety. The other part of the programme will be dedicated to training electrical installers.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2008-08-07 05:30
Worldwide, about one billion people are denied access to electricity and this number is growing at approximately five per cent per year. These people tend to live in rural areas, in urban and in suburban slums, and in camps. Electricity is a crucial element for all development. Agriculture, access to water, health, and education are seen as the basic axes for development. However, none of these are possible on any significant scale without electricity. 'You need electricity for water pumps, for lighting, for medical instrumentation, for computers', Benoît Dôme reminds us.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Sat, 2008-07-12 09:12
The following article is based on an interview with Benoît Dôme and describes the state of electrical supply in the Pikine slum outside Dakar. It indicates how a slum electrification project could be set up in this area. The article is published as an eBook and readers can scroll down to the different pages using the titles below. The full article is also available as a PDF for download.
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By Benoit Dome / Published on Wed, 2008-06-04 16:18
Seen rising up the side of this home’s wall is the access point of illegal power into this dwelling – next door is the well that is its <> and the surrounding dwellings’ water supply. The homes seen here are all powered by illegally access energy, as far as the eye could see.
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By Benoit Dome / Published on Wed, 2008-06-04 16:15
Technical losses also come from inefficient domestic appliances – seen here are examples of the many used refrigerators that are imported from, among other place, France, Germany and Spain.
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By Benoit Dome / Published on Wed, 2008-06-04 15:56
As the cables are often not buried under the sand pathways between homes re exposed to passing traffic. In this case is seen a common example of exposed live wires that have burnt through temporary insulation; in the rare occasions when it rains not only is the immediate contact a danger but the now wet sand creates a wider danger zone becoming an extended, unintended conductor.
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By Benoit Dome / Published on Wed, 2008-06-04 13:08
Access to electricity illegally is often taken from the past legal distribution point that can be up to 1000m away from the first household constituting the so-called “non-technical” losses. The orange cable seen in this photo is the “final distribution” that is open to both the elements and to passing pedestrians, horse and carts and motor vehicles. Accidents caused by these illegal connections mostly go unreported because of the illegality of the electricity sourcing.
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By Sergio Ferreira / Published on Tue, 2007-07-10 17:26
ICA and USAID hope that the project in Paraisópolis will be the first of many. According to Garcia, in theory there is a lot of money that could become available for slum electrification projects; money from international development organizations, NGOs, and local governments. Many utility companies may also be interested in investing in these sorts of projects.
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By Sergio Ferreira / Published on Tue, 2007-07-10 17:21
‘We followed a different approach in Paraisópolis’, says Garcia. ‘We are also using anti-theft coax cables, but the social part of the project is just as important. We created several working groups in the area, involving many people from the neighbourhood itself. And we ensured that other staff working there has a strong understanding of the mentality of the favela.
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By Sergio Ferreira / Published on Tue, 2007-07-10 17:20
‘The project in Paraisópolis is not the first slum electrification project in Brazil’, notes Garcia. ‘In Rio de Janeiro city, where non-technical losses amount to 40 per cent, the local utilities have tried similar projects. But after a few years, there were high rates of recidivism. Even advanced technology like remote connection control and anti-theft cables could not prevent people from making illegal connections again.
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By Sergio Ferreira / Published on Tue, 2007-07-10 17:11
Paraisópolis is not a unique case. In Brazil alone, the number of people living in slums is estimated to be two million. Similar situations exist in many other countries in Latin-America, Africa, and Asia. That is why the International Copper Association (ICA) and USAID launched the Slum Electrification and Loss Reduction Programme (SERL) in October 2005.
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By Sergio Ferreira / Published on Tue, 2007-07-10 17:04
The following article is the result of a discussion with Glycon Garcia providing an insight of a project of slum electrification in São Paulo, Brazil. The article is published as an eBook so you can scroll the different pages using the titles bellow. The full article is also available right.
Glycon Garcia, leader of the sustainable electrical energy programme of ICA Latin America and manager of the pilot project, describes the situation in the favela.
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