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LIVE With Electricity - Melbourne, Australia
Power Trip
By Charlotte Roseby
In the former Soviet Republic of Georgia there's only electricity four or five hours a day—and who knows when that will be. There's not much to do when there's no electricity. Shaving by candlelight becomes a national challenge. The contents of the freezer turns to mush, yet again. There are total blackouts in the nation's capital and the people take to the streets and riot.
This is electricity Georgian style, as pictured in the extraordinarily powerful documentary Power Trip, which you may have been lucky enough to catch on SBS TV recently. The film tracks the efforts of American energy corporation AES to bring power to the people of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.
Declared independent of the Soviet Union in 1991, Georgia has had more than its fair share of political and economic power struggles, and even civil war.
Here, electricity is a luxury. Electricity consumption in 2000 was estimated at approximately 8,000GWh in Georgia compared with 22,000GWh in Ireland, a country similar in geographical size with a population of 3.5 million compared with 4.5 million in Georgia.
Institutional and government corruption remains strong as ever. While a few large factories (those reportedly owned by relatives of then president Eduard Shevardnadze) suck up power, the people of Tbilisi are regularly plunged into total darkness and they have to take to the streets again.
Safety switches and certificates of electrical safety are a world away from here. Apartment buildings are criss-crossed with huge bundles of homemade wiring. Customers connect themselves to whatever electricity they can find. The standards of safety are just as you imagine. (During the film, the locals pull yet another body out of the electricity kiosk.)
Enter the fray, AES, an American-based multinational corporation who buy Tbilisi company Telasi, and take control of supply and distribution. They are determined to bring electricity to the people at the same time as turning a profit.
The problem is, the people of Georgia aren't used to paying for electricity. After all, it used to be free under Communist rule. Even the bills that are getting paid, aren't making their way back to the company. The cash payments get pocketed by clerks along the way. Factories are getting thousands of dollars worth of free electricity. Even institutions like the airport and the railways don't pay their bills.
AES turns to desperate measures to try and convince the populace that non-payment equals non-supply. They cut all the electricity to the airport five minutes before a plane is due to land. "They freaked out and paid instantly," laughs British AES manager (and pony-tailed star of this film) Piers Lewis.
The people of Tbilisi aren't happy seeing their already-low wages disappear to pay for an unreliable supply. So, they smash the meter cabinets, They break the lock on the electricity kiosk, connect themselves to free electricity again, and put a new lock on so the company can't get in. "This isn't dangerous. This is deadly." comments an AES staffer.
What Power Trip illustrates brilliantly, alongside the gripping story of corporate privatisation and corruption, is the social and emotional importance of electricity in the people's daily lives. As the local 60 Minutes reporter says in the film: "When there is no light, you are obsessed: when is the light coming. And when the light comes, you are obsessed again: when are they going to shut it down."
In Georgia, electricity has become a symbol of hope.
The DVD of Power Trip will be available in October. (We'll let you know in LIVE) In the meantime, visit www.powertripthemovie.com. There is a range of fascinating articles about the AES corporation and power supply in Georgia. Just follow the Background and Press links on the website.