The lights went out, the fans died and sweating customers began to file out of Bun Onn’s restaurant Wednesday night.
“Without the fans, it gets too hot in here for the customers,” Bun Onn, 53, said Thursday at his business on Street 19.
Like Bun Onn, Phnom Penh businesses and residents have been forced to cope with an erratic electricity supply this month, as Electricite Du Cambodge tries to ease the strain on its overburdened system by systematically shutting off power in different areas of the city.
Officials at the state-run power supplier said Thursday that the city’s neighborhoods are now on a rotating schedule for electricity, and any part of the capital may be subject to 90-minute blackouts.
EdC last month mostly confined blackouts to the city’s outskirts, but sluggish production at the Kirirom hydroelectric plant and a spike in demand continues to overwhelm the system, said Tan Kim Vin, director-general of EdC.
The hotter months of April and May are usually the worst, as the city’s wealthy residents turn on air conditioners and water levels dip at the Kirirom plant’s reservoir.
Ros Chenda, director of EdC’s generation department, said the city currently needs 116 megawatts of electricity a day—16 megawatts more than it can provide in the dry season. Put simply, he said, “The demand is higher than our capability to produce.”
While business owners say they can deal with the occasional blackouts, EdC officials say they have no plans to increase supply.
Looking to next year, Tan Kim Vin said EdC would likely deal with the dearth of power as it has this year, with rotating blackouts. He urged Phnom Penh residents to conserve electricity.
“If you use two air conditioners, please switch to one,” he said. “Don’t turn the light on if you don’t need it.”
