Development Strategy for the Electricity Sub-Sector in Haiti (2006 to 2011)

Prepared by MTPTC with BME and EDH under IAEA technical coordination, this document defines a program for the electricity sub-sector consistent with the government's wider strategy on sustainable development, competitiveness and poverty reduction. It positions itself as coherent with, and subordinate to, the National Energy Sub-Sector Development Plan (PNDSE), which covers energy as a whole.

The state-of-play chapter is blunt about institutional failure. It describes a total breakdown of management functions covering planning, organization, resource management, coordination, control and evaluation, producing slow and costly operation of the network and generation fleet, flying-blind decision-making, poor equipment choices in the form of fast diesel sets, and no serious investment in the sub-sector since 1988. It records a deficient financial information system, a tariff regime unsuited to EDH's financing needs, excessive dependence on external aid, and, in unusually direct language, that after successive coups certain individuals substituted themselves for the state and asset-stripped EDH, aided by a failing judicial system. Migration difficulties from the legacy Wang/VM computing platform are flagged as needing urgent resolution, alongside the absence of any five-year financial projection or sector master plan.

The supply picture is documented plant by plant. Peligre has 54 MW installed and can normally deliver 48 MW, but averages around 30 MW in the rainy season and 10 MW in the dry season. Carrefour has 50 MW installed against 12 MW available; Varreux 1 and 2 have 33 MW and 21 MW installed but together supply only 12.5 MW, with six of Varreux 2's units out of service. Formal capacity is put at about 157 MW against Port-au-Prince demand estimated above 161 MW in 2005, and national installed capacity of 197 MW against national demand of 550 MW. The document notes that earlier governments filled this gap through what it calls one-sided production agreements. Thermal plant accounts for 70 percent of EDH capacity and hydropower 30 percent, with only 62 MW of a 154 MW hydro potential exploited; the Artibonite 4C scheme is costed at roughly USD 120 million for 30 MW and 150 GWh, and a wind atlas study then under way indicated up to 50 MW exploitable around Lake Azuei.

Commercial performance is tabulated for 1998-99 to 2002-03, with total losses in the 46 to 54 percent range, billing rates in the mid-40s to low-50s percent, collection rates between 81 and 106 percent, and average tariffs rising from 1.76 to 5.19 gourdes per kWh. The strategy links electricity to poverty outcomes directly, arguing that supply improves schooling hours, reduces eye disease, improves safety in slum corridors, eases domestic work and frees women's time, and it notes that nearly four million taxpayers are effectively excluded from the service. Institutionally it proposes an organizing-authority and operator split in which obligations are specified in advance through performance, productivity and management indicators, with public-service constraints such as continuity of supply and quality norms including ecological and deforestation standards, and operator duties covering upkeep, repair and renewal of rotating equipment, vehicles and meters.