Sudan suffers electricity shortage

Shortages in spare parts at two thermal stations feeding Khartoum led on Sunday to cuts in electricity output for 18 hours.

The Sudanese daily al-Rai al-Am quoted the director general of the electricity department in Sudan, Yassin Haj Abdin, as saying that one of the two stations has reduced output to a production capacity of 20 megawatts from 60 megawatts, whereas the second is producing only 33% of its set capacity, estimated at 5.5 megawatts during the night and 3 megawatts in the daytime.

Abdin noted that the country's total electricity production is estimated at 250 megawatts whereas it actual need is estimated at 380 to 415 megawatts. He added that the reduction in energy production resulted from the lack of hard currency needed to import the spare parts necessary to maintain the two thermal stations.