You shouldn’t buy a tank during the water rationing period

By MUNGAI KIHANYA

The Sunday Nation

Nairobi,

16 August 2009

Due to the water and electricity shortages in the country, the respective utility companies have instituted rationing programmes. Nairobi residents are getting power on four days a week and water on one day only. As a result, many consumers have installed storage tanks and power backup systems. While these installations are understandable, they are defeating the purpose for the rationing!

Now, there are two types of shortages in both water and electricity: lack of “pressure” and lack of “commodity”. Let me use water to explain the difference.

Lack of pressure means that the supply system is not able to push the water up tall buildings. Thus there might be enough water in the dams, but it does not flow out with enough force. Consequently, people leaving on the ground floor of a building will get water all the time but not those on the higher floors.

Lack of commodity means that the dams have dried up. In this case, there might be enough pressure in the pipe line but there is no water to be pump!

As far as electricity is concerned, lack “pressure” means that the generators are not able to produce power at the rate with which it is being consumed. Thus, while there might be enough water at the hydro-electric dams, for example, there may not be enough generators to convert the outflow into electricity.

The total installed capacity of generation if Kenya is about 1,200MW. If the demand at any one moment exceeded this amount, everybody would notice their lights going dim. This be of no harm to bulbs, but most other appliances would get ruined…and the generators would overheat and surfer fatal damage! Therefore, the power company will switch off some consumers to bring down the demand.

Just like the case of water, lack of “commodity” in electricity means that there isn’t enough “raw material” to make power with, that is, the hydroelectric dams have dried up; there is no diesel at the Kipevu generators; and so on.

When there is lack of pressure, consumers can store the commodity during off-peak periods and then “pump” it up to their houses for use during peak time. In the case of water, this is simply a reservoir tank and a pump at ground level. For electricity, the storage is a large Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) unit…one that can run the house for several hours

While these measures have no adverse effect on the supply system if the shortage is due to a lack of pressure, the story is different when there is alack of commodity: they defeat the conservation efforts.

To understand why, suppose you consume 3,000 litres of water per week when the supply is normal and there are no interruptions. Now, the water company begins rationing and your area is supplied once a week. In response, you buy a 3,000L tank and this guarantees you continuous supply.

With this reservoir, you can continue using water normally as if there was no rationing. Since the rationing is as a result of lack of commodity, your action defeats its purpose because your weekly consumption will not change! If all your neighbours do the same, then the conservation effort will be defeated and the dam will continue depleting at the same alarming rate.

The same reasoning applies to electricity; those buying large UPSs are defeating the conservation efforts of the power company.