KEC and All Things Related

Speaking this acronym in public, KEC (Kosovo Energy Company), has the same effect as cursing. The state run power plant is notorious for having its generators breakdown on a regular basis and even at full steam Pristina seems to lose power, at least once a day especially during the winter. As one approaches the city from the countryside billowing plumes of smoke (hopefully white) can be seen coming out of any combination of 5 stacks. Everyone knows which ones are the old ones vs. the 'new ones'. Black smoke indicates the use of diesel fuel in order to get the power up enough for the coal to kick in (or a blow-out).

So how does this play out in our daily lives? Well aside from substituting idle chat about the weather with 'How has your power been', I never realized how much I took this basic energy source for granted. My first true power outage happened last week while I was home making dinner. Now since everyone knows outages are inevitable, most have taken the necessary precautions, as had I (or so I thought). First, your inverter. These are essentially very large car batteries that sit in ones apartment with a power converter box. They are constantly recharged when there is power and when there is not you can plug one power strip into them to run a TV (their priority), small lamp or in my case, laptop. My office paid to have one of these installed for me and as I went over to hit the switch for the much needed TV, a set of beeping alarms started to go on and after 10 seconds shut off only to restart itself and repeat the cycle. Of course this was a result of my oversight in just paying the guy to install the inverter, but not to check it and have him realize the batteries were dead. So 200 euros later I got new batteries and at least didn't have to pay again for a second install:-)

Next came my emergency rechargeable lamp that kicked on the second the power was cut. Great. Enough light to finish cooking and do my basic house chores and reading before off to bed. Well that is only if I could do all this in under 15 minutes which is all the time this lamp lasted. No one mentioned they are bright short term lights to be able to get all the candles out to light. Which leads me to my final source of light (and heat) for the night. I had bought a bag of candles but never gotten around the getting a good lighter. Fortunately that day I had bought one off the street boys to only have the flame rise up a quarter inch. So once I had finally had my finger slightly burned and my place glowing like a monetary, the power came back on. As I am also learning this does not mean it will stay on so one does not blow out the candles too quickly...

Now everyone has lost power at one point or another which is mostly just an inconvenience. Well, along with losing my power comes the loss of my heat (not to mention an electric alarm clock). And with the Arctic winters I have been warned about and my being located on the 4th floor on an exposed hillside, I am taking no chances. I have been fighting with my landlord to finally bring in a gas heater that I can fire up to keep warm during the cold winter nights. And in going about this process we learned that all the nice new water radiators in my unit require the water to be circulated by electricity. Now this would have been all dandy if it was actually connected and the landlord planned on turning it on for the winter. Apparently, he had no intention to do so since it costs him too much to heat the whole building. Most people have purchased electric heaters which are inefficient and dangerous. So after another threat to leave he installed a special electrical heating system just for my unit to warm each of the radiators (when there is power).

Most older homes and buildings have gotten around the electrical issue by using any combination of soft brown coal (which is already stinking up the air in Pristina), fire wood (illegally logged) or gas generators. But the city remains quite black at night only interupted by the droning hum of generators powering the bars and restaurants for the young crowd. Riding my bike around even requires a good light (from which the kids like to steal my batteries) just to see that I don't fall into an open pit or pothole.

And on a final note of related 'comforts', the water appears to be shut off often between 11pm and 6am so all must plan accordingly. So after a long active weekend I wanted to test out my Jacuzzi tub and as I tried to fill it up enough to turn on the jets, the water tank ran out of hot water. And then when I got in the luke warm tub we lost power so I couldn't turn on the jets. So what fun is sitting in a cold bathtub with no lights on? Not much...I'll stick to my TV set on the inverter. Ah yes, living in emerging markets is an adventure.