撒哈拉以南非洲电力公司财务业绩不佳的原因是什么？

Policy Research Working Paper What Underlies the Poor Financial Performanceof Electric Utilities in Sub-Saharan Africa? Govinda R Timilsina Policy Research Working Paper11257 Abstract This study investigates the factors responsible for the poorperformance of 67 electric utilities in 47 countries, usingdescriptive data from the World Bank, the InternationalEnergy Agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administra-tion, and national sources. The findings show that bothcost-side and revenue-side factors are responsible for thepoor financial performance of electric utilities. More thantwo-thirds of vertically integrated utilities and electricitydistribution utilities are unable to cover their operational consumers face relatively higher electricity tariffs than inmany countries around the world. The study also finds thatif the transmission and distribution losses were reducedto the current level of South Africa (11 percent) and theleakages in bill collection were eliminated, several electricutilities that are currently operating at a loss would havehigher revenue than their operational cost. The findingsindicate that policy makers in the region should focus on The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those 1. Introduction The Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region facesa significant challengeto increase accessto electricity. Almost 600 million people (or 43% of the total population) in the SSA region donot have access to electricity (World Bank, 2025a). The situation is worse in the rural areas,with only 26% of the population having access to electricity (World Bank, 2025a). Even ifthere is access, the quality of supply is poor due to hours of scheduled outages of electricity This study evaluates the performance of 67 electricity utilities in the SSA region forwhich data is available.1These utilities are divided into six groups based on their functionalresponsibilities. These are (i) vertically integrated utilities (VIU) which provide all threefunctions (i.e., electricity generation, transmission and distribution) for supplying electricityservices; (ii) electricity generation utilities (EGUs) which generate electricity and sell to consumers buying it from EGUs or EGTs or ETUs. Of the 67 utilities considered, 30 are VIUs,eight are EGUs, two are EGTs, seven are ETU, 19 are EDU and three are TDUs. All VIUs arepublicly owned except Cameron’s ENEO. ETUs and TDUs are, by virtue, publicly owned. The size of the utilities varies significantly in terms of their assets and employment,the number of customers served, and the electricity generated by VIUs and EGUs or sold byVIUs, EDUs, and TDUs. Figure A1 presents a comparison of utilities in terms of these sizeindicators. In terms of total assets of the VIUs, South Africa’s ESKOM is the largest utility inthe SSA region, followed by the Democratic Republic ofCongo’s SNEL, Tanzania’s TANSCO Some existing studies analyze the financial performance data of electric utilities inthe SSA region (e.g., Balabanyan et al. 2021; Trimble et al. 2016; Kozima and Trimble, 2016).Using publicly available financial and operational performance data of 76 electric utilities in45 countries in the SSA region for the 2012-2018 period, Balabanyan et al. (2021) reportseveral findings. First, the cost recovery by revenue worsened between 2012 and 2018 inefficiencies. They suggest minimizing T&D losses, improving the bill collection rate andincreasing tariffs for larger consumers to improve the financial performance of utilities.Utilizing the same data set used in Kozima and Trimble (2016), Trimble et al. (2016) calculatequasi-fiscal deficits of electric utilities and conclude that electric utilities will not be able to Our study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, it uses the most recentdataas compared to existing studies which usedata that are at least 10 years old, andcaptures the changes in financial performance since then. Second,it examinesadditionalfactors responsible for poor financial performance of electric utilities in the SSA region, suchas higher fuel costs, lower capacity factors and lower capital and labor productivities. Third,it calculates the amount of revenue loss that can be avoided through reduction of T&D lossandimproving the electricity bill collection rates.Fourth,it highlights the role of costs through fuel switching and increasing factor productivities) as well as the revenue side(e.g., reducing T&D loss and bill collection leakage) instead of increasing electricity tariffs inlow-income SSA countries.However, existing subsidies either provided to electricity directly The res