Haiti Energy Sector Development Plan 2007-2017

Haiti's ten-year energy sector development plan, prepared by the public works ministry with the Bureau of Mines and Energy and Électricité d'Haïti. Its diagnosis of the electricity utility is unusually direct: the grids are old and unreliable, national electrification is low, losses are very high and billing is consequently very low.

The plan quantifies the metering problem as a revenue problem, which is what makes it actionable. EDH evaluates technical losses at 18 percent. Household electricity consumption is estimated at 266 GWh, with metered households consuming an average 727 kWh against 528 kWh for unmetered, that is illegal, consumption. Installing at least 100,000 meters in such households is described as achievable in a short period and worth around 6 million US dollars a year to EDH, so the recommendation carries its own payback.

On demand it projects final energy consumption reaching 2.04 million tonnes of oil equivalent by 2015, more than 20.7 percent above 2000, with manufacturing the fastest-growing subsector at at least 3.9 percent a year over 2000-2015. Fuelwood substitution is treated as the central supply-side option to avoid further deforestation, including in industry and services rather than households alone, and the plan notes that 13.5 percent of families already use another energy source, bringing the achievement against the earlier target to 38.5 percent. It also records bagasse going unused, with alcohol industry owners hesitant to burn it on the stated pretext of low calorific content, and notes that 80 percent of one capacity is used for lighting with the remaining 20 percent for vaccine and seafood conservation, pumping, audiovisual and communication.