ANGOLA’S INFRASTRUCTURE: A CONTINENTAL PERSPECTIVE

**Table 2. Benchmarking Angola’s power infrastructure**

||Units|Angola|Low-<br>income,<br>fragile|Low-income,<br>nonfragile|Middle-<br>income|Resource<br>rich|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Access to electricity, national|% of population|30|15|33|50|46|
|Installed generation capacity per capita|MW per million people|70|46|20|799|43|
|Firms that find power a constraint for business|% of firms|46|67|52|31|56|
|Firms with own generator|% of firms|68|33|41|18|63|
|Outages per year|days|36|11.1|41|5.6|15|
|Outages, value lost, annually|% of sales|13|5|6|2|7|
|Collection rate, reported by utility, electricity|% of billing|42||92|91|70|
|Cost-recovery ratio, historical|%|15|85|89|85|97|
|Revenue per unit|US cents per KWh|2.5|3|14|13|13|
|System losses|% of generation|18–23|24|24|20|52|
|Total hidden costs|%of revenue|375|544|69|0|168|
|||Angola|Predomi|nantlyhydropower|<br>Ot|her developing<br>countries|
|Effectivepower tariff|Residential at 100 kWh|3.72||10.27|||
|Effective power tariff|Commercial at 100 kWh|4.88||11.73||5.0–10.0|
|Effective powertariff|Industrial at 50.000 kWh|4.88||11.39|||

_Source:_ Data for aggregates for low-income, middle-income, and fragile states based on data for 2005 unless indicated otherwise <u>(www.infrastructureafrica.org/tools/data). Data for access to electricity, installed and operational capacity, collection rate, and system losses</u> provided by World Bank specialists (2011). Data on revenue per unit, cost recovery, and hidden costs based on information from World Bank (2010a). Firms that find power to be a constraint taken from World Bank (2007b). Value lost and outages per year is from enterprise surveys and is from World Bank (2010b). _Note:_ kWh = kilowatt-hour; MW = megawatts Additionally, even though power availability has improved, service continues to be relatively unreliable, with growing recourse to emergency rentals to safeguard supply. Despite the steep growth in power production, World Bank investment climate surveys in 2007 reported that around 84 percent of firms experience power outages, lasting around 21 hours, on average 8 times a month. Large firms indicated a more acute problem, with at least 16 outages a month; the manufacturing sector overall was the worst affected. The problems were reportedly worse outside Luanda (World Bank 2007b). In 2010 results from the enterprise showed marginal improvement, with Angolan firms enduring a modestly better 6 outages a month lasting around 14 hours (World Bank 2010b). Overall 36 days were spent without electricity, twice the time endured by other resource-rich African countries.

Inadequate power supply is a huge impediment to private sector activity. In 2007 at least 68 percent of Angolan firms surveyed in the larger cities had their own generation capacity to compensate for intermittent grid supply. Outside of Luanda, 90 percent of firms owned their own generators, producing almost a third of their own power needs. Recent estimates suggest that at least 900 MW of self-generation capacity has been put in place by Angola’s firms. This is not far short of ENE’s generation capacity, and much higher than in many other resource-rich countries. Around 5 percent of firms’ annual turnover was lost due to electricity shortages, which is typical of resource-rich countries in Africa (World Bank 2007b). In 2010 the impact of unreliable power supply was reportedly worse, such that the value lost due to erratic power supply had increased substantially to 13 percent, much higher than for the peer group (World Bank 2010b). Self-generation by firms is largely diesel-based and can cost as much as $0.40 per kilowatt-hour 11