Bissau, Oct. 15, 2024 (Lusa) - Since the end of August, the Guinea-Bissau Electricity and Water Company (EAGB) has been receiving energy from a subregional project. It has stopped using a Turkish company's floating power station but continues to pay for contractual reasons.
The information was revealed to Lusa on Tuesday by Vasco Rodrigues dos Santos, a Portuguese manager hired by the World Bank to manage the EAGB.
According to Vasco dos Santos, the EAGB is receiving 25 megawatts of electricity from OMVG (Organisation for the Utilisation of the Gambia River Basin, in French), produced at the Kaleta dam in Guinea-Conakry, and has stopped using that produced at the Turkish company's floating power station, stationed in the port of Bissau.
The EAGB director-general emphasised that energy from Senegal is also coming into the Guinean electricity grid as part of this subregional network, which links Guinea-Conakry, Senegal, The Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau.
Since last August, the EAGB has no longer received the energy produced by a floating power station that the Turkish company Karpower made available to Guinea-Bissau under a contract to inject into the public grid in Bissau.
"The boat, Karpower's floating power station, has been disconnected since 23 August following the completion of the work and the ring network (...) that connects Bissau to the OMVG network," he said.
The director-general of the EAGB said that if there is a fault on one side, for example, on the interconnection line from Guinea-Conakry, the power will not fail in Bissau, as it has also been coming from Senegal since last week.
The supply transition has caused power outages in recent weeks, but Vasco dos Santos says the improvements to the network in Bissau are noticeable.
He explained that the price of energy for consumers will only go down when EAGB's "contract problem" with Karpower is resolved.
"The boat doesn't supply energy, but we have a contract until 2031. Guinea-Bissau has a contract until 2031, according to which, from 9 December this year, the capacity will go up to 50 megawatts and then to 70 megawatts, and we are consuming zero, but you have to pay. Theoretically, it has to be paid for," said the Portuguese manager.
Technically, EAGB "is bankrupt", so it can't pay Karpower, said Vasco dos Santos, who proposed a negotiated solution to the Turkish company, which is still under discussion.
"At the moment, we are paying just for the boat to be there, $1.5 million a month" (around €1.4 million), said the Portuguese manager, emphasising, however, that EAGB cannot pay that monthly fee "for lack of money".
Currently, EAGB is buying energy from OMVG at half the price of Karpower. Still, Vasco dos Santos argues that the company won't be able to lower the energy price until it ends the exemptions and makes all consumers pay for it.
The Portuguese manager notes that many of the company's employees, for example, don't pay for the energy they consume.
For the time being, Bissau is receiving 25 megawatts of energy from OMVG, but in four months' time, the power will be increased to 35 megawatts to connect industrial units. By the end of 2025, the entire interior of Guinea-Bissau will have energy from the sub-regional project, said the Portuguese manager.
Vasco dos Santos also wants the government to assist the company in updating the water tariff supplied to Bissau's population, which he considers to be "very low".
"The price of water in Guinea-Bissau is the lowest, by far, in the whole sub-region and on top of that, we have the highest production costs because there are many countries that have dams and river catchments, and we don't," he emphasised.
EAGB currently collects water from boreholes using pumps.
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