2016 Low-water Season Ends

The GM writes to Consumer Associations

«Dear Chairpersons and Partners,

I wish to inform you that since last 20 June, we have shut down once and for all the Mape dam after that of Bamendjin, a few weeks earlier. The Sanaga intermediary catchment flow has exceeded the 920m3/s mark, thereby putting an end to flow rate regulation. Meanwhile, the contributions of Djerem at Mbakaou have equally exceeded the current stilling flow rate (350m3/s).

Thus, the low water period is considered ended on the South Interconnected Grid (SIG). Despite the 7 to 8% increase in demand (which translates into an additional need of 75 to 100 MW capacity per year) the supply/demand equilibrium has been maintained since the beginning of the year thanks to the combination of the following factors:

It should be noted that during the 2015 low-water period, the power system witnessed 21 days of power outage during which blackouts affected customers’ activities.

Meanwhile, some localities are still experiencing power outages here and there due to incidents or planned work on the transmission and distribution networks. Most incidents are caused by the quality of wood poles, bad weather, vandalism, and overloaded transformers, which are in turn due to fraud or an ever-increasing demand. A network modernization plan needs to be initiated in order to resolve such incidents.”