Publication
Omar Shaban Ismail · Sama News Agency · 2020
Omar Shaban criticises Gaza's reliance on private generators: they endanger lives, are unregulated and unregistered, are a workaround typical of a “crisis economy”, and use public electricity infrastructure free of charge — and cutting their tariff only legitimises them. He compares prices: 4 shekels per kilowatt-hour from generators (2.5 since a week ago) against half a shekel from the Israeli electricity company, which sells Gaza 120 megawatts, and 1.2 shekels from the power plant, and calls for buying more electricity from Israel. He proposes strategic solutions: investing in renewable energy, buying more through Line 161, extending the gas pipeline to the power plant, prepaid and smart cards, and enforcing payment on those who can pay while exempting those who cannot.
Omar Shaban, September 2020: Gaza’s generators are risky and cost 4 shekels/kWh; Israeli power at half a shekel, renewables and gas are the fix.
- The generators spread throughout all parts of the Gaza Strip constitute a constant danger to people’s lives, as they are located with their fuel tanks among residential areas and on top of rooftops. They are unregulated, have no official registration, and it cannot be verified that they apply safety and security procedures.
- Reliance on generators is a workaround that deals with the symptoms of the crisis—an “economy of crises”—rather than its roots. Resorting to private generators has diverted attention away from the search for sustainable strategic solutions.
- Generators exploit and consume some components of the electricity sector’s infrastructure (poles, networks, transformers, and others) free of charge, even though they are public property that the private sector has no right to exploit without compensation.
- The recent proposals to reduce the sale price of a kilowatt of generator electricity confer legitimacy on this type of business created by the crisis, and instead of confronting the crisis, these short-term solutions benefit from it and keep it unresolved at a fundamental level.
- The sale price of a kilowatt of electricity from generators was 4 shekels, which is a very high price. For the record, the purchase price of a kilowatt from the Israeli Electric Corporation, which sells 120 megawatts to the Gaza Strip, is half a shekel, while the sale price of a kilowatt from the generating station is 1.2 shekels. That is, purchasing electricity from Israel is much cheaper than electricity generated by the power plant in Gaza, and far, far cheaper than generator electricity.
- It would be highly economically beneficial to work on increasing the amount of electricity purchased from Israel at a price of half a shekel per kilowatt and selling it to people instead of generator electricity, which had been sold to consumers at 4 shekels throughout the past ten years and at 2.5 shekels since a week ago. Purchasing electricity at lower prices would have very significant positive effects on living standards, poverty rates, the cost of local production, and more.
- The chronic electricity crisis that shows us its ugly face from time to time is in need of strategic solutions, including: 1) investing intensively in renewable energy from the sun and wind; 2) increasing the amount of electricity purchased from Israel (Line 161); 3) accelerating the extension of the gas pipeline to the generating station; 4) rationalizing consumption through the use of prepaid cards and smart cards; 5) applying the law to those able to pay and granting reductions and exemptions to those unable to pay.
- The cost of implementing all or some of these solutions is far lower than the cost of managing the crisis we have been living through for years.
Topic: Gaza Economy — electricity crisis · private generators · renewable energy · Line 161 — Text © Sama News Agency — archived here with attribution to the source. — Original source