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Bahrain sees big drop in summer power cuts

Manama, July 8, 2013

Power cuts in Bahrain during summer have been significantly decreased in the last three years, said a senior government official.

The average monthly blackouts have been cut from 12 hours in 2010 to 3.6 hours last year, according to a report in the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication.

It shows a decrease of around 47 per cent from 2010 to 2011 and 44 per cent from 2011 to last year.

Minister of State for Electricity and Water Affairs Dr Abdulhussain Mirza said in the last two months, the Electricity and Water Authority (EWA) was able to decrease power cuts from 2.5 hours in May 2012 to 1.5 in the same month this year.

It also cut the time in June from seven hours in 2012 to two hours this year.

"The EWA has been working to resolve electricity cuts with different schemes and plans for the summer months since last year," said Dr Mirza. “One of which is working to lessen time to recover from power cuts."

He was speaking during a Press conference held after the Cabinet's weekly meeting in Gudaibiya Palace yesterday.

To tackle the issue during the summer, the EWA has increased the number of generators from 60 to 125, with an additional 25 emergency generators acquired from the private sector.

It has also increased its hotlines from 30 to 40, doubled its employees from 35 to 70, and brought in 348 technicians and 40 supervisors.
Technology

Emergency centres in Muharraq, Riffa and Manama have also been set up to help decrease time to resolve electricity problems.

"We have also introduced a new technology to determine the affected area to lessen waiting time and dismiss the prior attempt to dig the whole area to find the problem source," said Dr Mirza.

"Now a car equipped with special computers go around the area and determine the problem exactly to dig in place.

"The authority is also looking to have old or bad condition cables changed before a problem occurs.

"We try to lessen the problem but we cannot say we won't have any cuts to electricity.

"It is due to the loads and construction going on in houses as well as street infrastructure work which sometimes lead to hitting a cable mistakenly. We are trying to get the time to resolve cuts lessened to not affect citizens. Power cuts during Ramadan in Bahrain do not usually happen."

Bahrain has no problems with electricity production, as it currently produces around 4,000 megawatts from five production stations to meet the estimated maximum consumption of around 3,200 megawatts.

"There is no problem with electricity production in the country," said Dr Mirza.

"The problem is with distribution, as we have a problem with houses that are constructing extra rooms in areas which have an estimated power allocation for five rooms in each house. This brings a load on the current cables capacity and causes cut outs as it calls for double or triple the current capacity especially during the summer months,” he added. – TradeArabia News Service




Tags: Bahrain | Ramadan | EWA | Blackouts |

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