IEEE Spectrum December, 2009 - 35

even in wartime, life goes on. gedco still
has to deal with everyday issues, like ensuring that
customers pay for their electricity use. that's no
small feat in a region where 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty line: gedco estimates
that it manages to collect only about 25 percent of
what it is owed by its customers.
the company's web site proclaims that "paying
the bill is a religious obligation." every day in gaza,
gedco's collectors fan out over the territory with
sheets of paper identifying delinquent customers.
if the customer refuses to pay or agree to a payment
plan, the technician will often immediately climb a
pole and physically disconnect the cables. some of the
disconnected customers attempt to reconnect the line
themselves or hire someone else to do it. in that case,
gedco takes drastic action, and the phrase "cutting
the power" becomes more than a figure of speech, as
this reporter saw on a sunny afternoon in late may.
perched atop a wooden pole on a gaza city street
lined with buildings still pockmarked by mortars
from israel's recent military incursion, a maintenance worker at first glance appeared to be repairing a
power line leading to a two-story building. but a split
second later, the line dangled free-the building's connection to the gaza grid had just been severed.
unlike gedco, a public utility, the power plant is a
commercial operation that must produce and sell electricity to stay in business. the gaza power plant has
been operating at only partial capacity-today mostly
because of the blockade. for the moment, only four
of the plant's six turbines are running. At one point,
the power plant's managers had hoped to add an additional six turbines to the facility, bringing total generwww.spectrum.ieee.org

ation up to 280 mw. but now, because some of the plant's transformers
were damaged during the war, it cannot handle full output from even the
working turbines. siemens, the turbines' manufacturer, sends its technicians to work at the plant, but only if the power plant pays a private security company to protect them.
rebuilding after the most recent war, with key parts unavailable
or in very short supply, demanded resourcefulness. gedco had to
erect wooden poles to replace damaged medium-voltage steel poles.
but even if gedco could get steel poles, it couldn't obtain the concrete needed to set the poles, because as part of the economic blockade, israel does not allow any concrete into gaza, making it an especially prized commodity.
major guy inbar, a spokesman for the israeli defense ministry's
coordinator of government Activities in the territories, which is
responsible for gaza issues, says israel has not received any applications for cement or steel poles from the palestinian power authority. And
while some equipment was approved for the power plant, inbar says,
some other items were denied for what israel determined were security
concerns. inbar acknowledges that the long list of needed items must be
reviewed individually, which makes for a long wait.
the blockade has also led to shortages of certain wires and cables, so
gedco has had to use whatever it has on hand. in many cases the cable
sizes are inadequate for the loads, leading to excessive heat and high resistive losses. lines that should be replaced are left in place with splices and
connectors. transformers are routinely overloaded, admits suheil skeik,
gedco's general manager. "we risk them by overloading, but we have
no other way," he says.
for the power plant, the inability to get parts and supplies has been
particularly challenging. israel's offensive has been over for nearly a year,
but the power plant must still clear every spare part with israeli authorities, a system that maliha insists is unworkable. sometimes the plant
gets approval; sometimes it doesn't. "if you are running a power plant,
you need a continuous flow of spare parts and consumables," he notes.
skeik's radical solution is to eliminate israel from the energy
equation. fueling the plant, he explains, means relying on israel. but
without energy and fuel from israel, what is the future of the grid? "we
look to egypt as our solution," he maintains. but it's hard to see how that
would work, because egypt also cooperates in the gaza blockade. for
several years, there have been plans to put in place ten 22-kilovolt feeder
lines to increase the electricity supply from egypt; but the project, which
was to be funded by the islamic development bank, has been put on hold
practically from the day it was first proposed in 2003.
israel continues to insist that the weekly fuel ration is enough. that
fuel enables the plant to produce about 65 mw, according to israel's
estimates; inbar insists that this is "the needed amount for the humanitarian needs of the civil population." Assuming the situation remains
stable, israel will provide "enough power supply for the humanitarian
needs of the people of gaza." israeli spokesman inbar did not say how
israel determines the amount required for these needs.
the palestinians see israel's actions differently. "the israelis want
everything closed down: electricity, materials, everything," says skeik.
one thing is certain: the power situation, like the political situation,
has reached a seemingly insurmountable impasse. "it was the first of
its kind in the palestinian national Authority," recalls maliha of the
power plant's construction. "it was promising because at the beginning, there was talk about regional power sharing between different
countries." now, he says, all those dreams have evaporated. there are
currently no plans for expansion.
Asked about the future, maliha responds with an answer typical in
gaza these days. "you cannot make a plan; there is no plan," he says.
"you live for the day."
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dEcEmbEr 2009 * iEEE SpEctrum * NA

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum December, 2009