Post COVID-19 electrical load shedding on Cameroon's northern interconnected grid: causes, safety impact and solution proposals

Abstract

This paper, after assessing and ranking power shortage causes in Cameroon's northern Interconnected Grid, summarises the impact of power shortage on poor households and district hospitals. The results showed a drop of 40% of the supplied energy and the fluctuations of demand continued across the COVID-19 period till July in 2021 after lockdown, thus a low influence of the pandemic. The results also revealed a low influence of temperature and precipitations in the energy crisis. Instead, it was found that the most important factor that led to power shortage is electricity production cost which is higher than market price. Out of seven hypotheses tested by the structural model developed, five were significantly supported and two were rejected. The hypothesis testing showed that electrical fire safety and patient care in hospitals are both positively significantly affected by load shedding, hospital management and user's safety commitment and knowledge. Also, the results showed that neither safety knowledge nor safety impact is affected by demographic and socioeconomic variables. Using these results, a series of recommendations were given to energy practitioners and grid managers.