December 23 2009

Israel: Study: Israel must take energy conservation steps

Israel must make energy efficiency a priority to avoid potential disruptions in its power supply, a new study said.

Facing an acute shortage of energy sources to meet surging demand for electricity, Israel must take significant conservation measures and invest in renewable energies, according to the study produced by the RAND Corp.

"The single most important factor to having a successful energy policy is for Israel to slow the growth in demand for electricity and use its energy more efficiently,” said Steven Popper, the study's lead author, told JTA. "The higher the demand for electricity, the fewer choices you have, and the more likely it is that you'll pay some pretty severe penalties -- higher costs, more pollution, a coastline filled with power plants, or Israel might be much more vulnerability to supply cutoffs."

Nigeria: Government laments low connection to national power grid

No fewer than 70 million Nigerians are still not connected to national grid, even as Federal Government announced rise in power generation to a three-year high 3,600 mega watts (mw).

The Nigerians that are yet to be connected to the national grid represent 50 per cent of the nation's population.

The Minister for Power, Dr. Olanrewaju Babalola, at a press conference in Lagos recently, expressed dissatisfaction with the situation, pledging that government would make frantic efforts to ensure that all Nigerians enjoy regular power supply.

Nepal: Load shedding hours to increase to six hours a day from next week

Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) is increasing the load shedding hours to six hours from the existing four hours a day, from next week.

NEA has said, it is forced to increase the load shedding hours as the production is decreasing due to reducing water-levels in the rivers, while the consumption is increasing due to the winter season.

NEA's executive director Jivendra Jha said, a new schedule for load shedding will be released next week.

NEA sources said, the water level in Kulekhani hydro power project, the country's only reservoir based hydro-project has been saved due to the three-day strike called by the Unified CPN (Maoist) when most of the industries remained closed. The level of water in Kulekhani at present is more than 1500 metres.

Pakistan: Six to eight hours loadshedding in cities

The duration of loadshedding has been increased from six to eight hours due to the power shortfall in the country. According to the Pepco authorities, the power generation in the Tarbela Dam has declined to 350 megawatt due to which the shortfall has reached above 2,000MW. The distribution companies have issued notices for four hours loadshedding, however, another two hours unannounced blackouts are also continued .However, in rural areas the outages duration reached around eight hours. Pepco authorities have said that the loadshedding would continue due to the increased release of water from the reservoirs, adding that the outages would likely to continue next month.

Venezuela: Venezuela imposes energy rationing measures

Venezuela imposed electricity rationing Tuesday, trying to avert widespread blackouts in the coming months by limiting the hours of shopping malls and requiring businesses and large housing complexes to cut back or be penalized.

The unprecedented measures are aimed at keeping the Guri hydroelectric dam - the country's largest - from failing because of a prolonged drought as Venezuela enters the dry season, said Angel Rodriguez, the government's electricity minister.