By Moutaz Ali.
Tripoli, 8 July 2014:
General Electricity Company of Libya (GECOL) has called for closer coordination with the country’s newly-elected municipal councils . . .[restrict]on both security and electricity use.
In a meeting held at GECOL headquarters in Tripoli, attended by GECOL chairman Bashir Al-Sadi and representatives from a number of municipal councils, the company asked them to provide security for local electrical facilities, both stations and sub-stations.
GECOL also asked for help in reducing consumption so as to ensure an end to the power cuts which still plague the country despite earlier promises that there would be none during Ramadan. In a presentation, GECOL explained that overloads during peak hours were the problem. “We have a plan that will enable us to end all electricity cuts by the end of August,” GECOL spokesman Lutfi Ghoma told the Libya Herald.
“The company asked the municipal councils to find temporary ways of rationing electricity use,” he explained. GECOL’s request to councils was about reducing electricity usage by commercial facilities rather than domestic housing usage, he said.
He did not spell out exactly how municipal councils could ration local commercial electricity use.
Meanwhile, in its meeting last Sunday, the government gave GECOL the go-ahead to import new transformers.
“The government actually is very supportive of us because of its awareness of the electricity problems that Libya’s residents are suffering from,” Ghoma said. [/restrict]