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Lebanese juggle schedules to conform with power outages

01 September 2010

GHOBEIRI: Electricity outages, paired with this summer’s extreme heat, have proven to be a huge test to those taking part in the holy month of Ramadan, especially in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

No one in the capital can escape the age-old power problem, but according to residents living in the suburbs, the closer you are to Downtown Beirut, the better.

Soha, a homemaker in Tayyouneh, on the border with the capital, says that her situation is a lot better than those who live deep in the suburbs.

According to Soha, her scheduled cuts are fairly consistent, but there are times when the area she lives in is in complete darkness, while the neighborhood across from her, Qasqas, is fully lit up.

“The other day we were having a barbecue for iftar and the electricity and generator weren’t working, so we didn’t have any light to see if the food was done. We had raw and burned shish kabob,” she said.

Soha does not have an air conditioner and still pays an average of LL50,000 monthly for electricity. She averages 12 hours of electricity a day, which she says is good for the suburbs, but adds that the Electricité du Liban ( EdL ) schedule can be extremely inconvenient when it comes to the cuts.

On one day electricity is on from 6 pm to midnight, 6 am to 10 am, and 2 pm to 6 pm, with the rest of the time covered by a generator, depending on its availability. The next day’s schedule will be the opposite of the previous day’s schedule, so she has to plan her day according to the scheduled cuts.

This Ramadan has been especially hard for people in the suburbs when it comes to completing their daily tasks. On an average day, Soha and her family will wake up after a sleepless night to the summer heat because the electricity and generator will both be off. Because it is so hot outside, she will send the kids who are not fasting out to the market to buy the food for iftar. Sometimes she will plan to go to the market herself when she knows the elevator will be running, so that she does not have to carry the groceries or butane tank up the stairs.

She makes just enough food for what the kids will eat so that she won’t have any leftovers, because her refrigerator is usually off. Soha added that she prefers to have her freezer full of food so that she doesn’t have to go to the market every day, but without reliable electricity, she doesn’t want to risk the chance of food spoiling.

When it comes to sitting down to have iftar, her family can be found eating and sweating at the same time. “Even the water we drink is warm,” Soha adds.

Batool, Soha’s daughter who lives in a neighboring apartment, pays LL75,000 monthly to use 5 amps from the generator that she shares with her mother and their family’s auto electrician’s shop downstairs. They will limit their generator usage during the day if people are working in the shop. Soha uses the amps for her fan, television, and light. Batool uses it for her refrigerator.

“If Batool and her family are over for iftar, we switch the wires so that the refrigerator works at my apartment,” Soha said.

Soha’s situation still doesn’t compare to her friend, Zainab, who lives further out in the suburbs, in a neighborhood called Maroun Missik. EdL’s scheduled cuts don’t apply here.

For her state electricity supply alone, Zainab pays an average of LL89,000 a month for electricity, with an average of about six hours of electricity a day. She has yet to receive a response from EdL on why her bill is so high, given that she lacks the luxuries of air conditioning or back-up generators.

Many residents in the suburbs have experienced this extremely high and unexplainable EdL bill, and public complaints have been regular over the years.

One month a resident will pay LL40,000 and the next month he or she will find a bill for LL300,000. Many pay the bill because they fear having their power disconnected. EdL tells them to pay now and resolve the issue later, but usually they never get refunded and are left without an explanation.

In addition, electricity in Maroun Missik may be completely out for three consecutive days if there are break-downs on the network, which can be compared to the one-day repairs in Tayyouneh.

Nearby in Bir Hassan, an elderly woman battles the grueling heat by traveling from her apartment to her son’s apartment complex when her electricity and generator fail.

Her choice of where to spend the day depends on whether there is electricity for her to ride the elevator up to her son’s second-floor apartment. On some nights, she is obliged to stay at her son’s, because there is no electricity for her to take the elevator down.

This is extremely frustrating for her as she pays a monthly EdL bill of LL35,000 for an average of six hours of electricity a day, LL150,000 a month for 10 amps from the generator, and LL1,500,000 for a small battery powered Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) system, which provides emergency power used to power her lights. On average, the batteries for her UPS system need to be replaced every two years.

Since it is Ramadan, generators have been running more frequently at night, but after Ramadan, some individuals in the suburbs are considering purchasing a UPS system.

One can pay around LL1,400,000 for a small UPS system, which will power a light and a television. A large UPS system can power a refrigerator, television, and multiple computer systems for the price of LL2,500,000.

Just as previous state officials inherited this growing problem, so have the residents in the suburbs, by paying money for back-up power, and sometimes back-up power for the back-up power.

© Copyright The Daily Star 2010.