This weeks posting on electricity has a lot more people writing than I expected so a BIG Thank you to all who participated.
Of course when writing you want to know who won the weekly prize!
@monica-ene and I looked at all the entries and didn't come up with the same first, second and third prize winners so I did what I always do.. I changed the prizes awarded. Instead of 3HBD, 2HBD, 1HBD...
I awarded 2 HBD to @jjmusa2004, @threedotz and @rare-gem
There just wasn't one clear winner.
However, there were a lot of very good entries so I awarded 1 HBD to everyone else. Sure some were stronger entries than others but I just loved how so many people made their first post to the community this week.
It was my way of saying THANK-YOU to everyone who participated.
Of course, I can't do this every week or I'll go broke but for today that's how I did it.
Overall I learned a lot of things.
In Nigeria there is a variety of prices paid depending on where you live. I saw numbers anywhere from 0.05HBD/kWh to 0.15HBD/kWh. Some people pay by a NEPA bill sent monthly. Others pay online by a prepaid meter.
Some people split the bill among all the people in the compound or house. Others pay their own bill. Still others get stuck paying the bill for someone who cheated the system and isn't even living in the house!
The actual bill paid can be very arbitrary. The NEPA bill may or may not be based on an actual meter reading. The actual meter may have been tampered with to get free electricity.
In the end some people decided to forget the power company as much as possible and went with Solar Power instead.
Here's a brief rundown of what I took home from individuals:
@threedotz -- she mentioned how theft of power is an issue. She also mentioned that with a new baby she needed reliable power and got a solar system for lights. Seems like she made a great choice!
@cheeamaka -- talked about how they had a prepaid meter but their prepaid load didn't last long at all. Seems they were paying for a previous tenants theft. After a little work they are now getting reliable inexpensive power.
@sammyhive -- told about how Nigeria has rich energy resources. However it seems that the distribution of those resources is based on a corrupt system so that not everyone benefits from the resources of the country. Also mentioned how bill collectors are "thugs" out to extort money from the average person who wants electricity.
@twicejoy -- talked about how the lack of electricity stunts business growth. He has chickens which need the light and aren't getting it because of power interruptions.
@jmis101 -- talks about how she shares her prepaid meter bill with others in her home. She uses very little power and in the end its included with her rent.
@leemah1 -- talked about how she has a prepaid meter but its not very useful because two weeks and no electricity! How annoying would it be to prepay for something only to be unable to use it!
@jjmusa2004 -- took lots of pictures. Loved the picture of the power bill so I could do some calculations on electricity rates. He also gave some background on how power is produced in the country. Why he went to a solar system (and how much it cost). He was my #1 choice but Monica had another person in mind....That's why things got split as they did. Sorry jjmusa.
@rare-gem -- Used to have a NEPA bill but went to Prepaid and that seems to be working better for them. Lots of great pictures and she told how reliability varies a lot from place to place.
@marynn -- Gave us a picture of the electric bill (thank you) but with all the outages and unreliable power ultimately they found that solar was a great alternative and better than generators other people use. She also gave some cost saving ideas ... not sure about the freezer idea but if it works for her than great!
@emreal -- He was the one who mentioned that the NEPA bill doesn't really reflect actual usage. He mentioned that he used very little power and still got a big bill. Even when he used little power or there was an extended blackout the bill still managed to come (even if the electricity didn't). He also mentioned that the meter was often not even checked, which seemed pretty odd to me.
Overall I was very pleased with this weeks topic. Of course if would be better if we could tempt some people from other countries to write but I'll take what I can get and want to take a moment to say:
T H A N K . . . . . Y O U . . . . . E V E R Y O N E