Energy Supply Management System for Lesotho: User Interactive System

Abstract

There is inadequate energy data in Lesotho due to lack of data collection tools that would assist in collecting and storing data from supply through transformation to final use of each energy form. This report describes a development of a full web-based system that captures and stores energy products in database from various supply sources using Personal Home Page (PHP) programming language. This system is user interactive and allows specified users to insert and/or retrieve energy products from the database while other users can register into the system to view, query or fetch as well as download stored energy products data and system generated energy commodity account (ECA) and energy balance (EB) for a specified year. From the 2017 and 2018 energy data that has been inputted into the Energy Supply Management System (ESMS), an ECA and EB reports are generated for the energy supply part which is where the system’s emphasis is on. The report provides analysis on Lesotho’s energy supply mix which is mainly from biomass with 73% of the total supply for both 2017 and 2018, with almost no traces of renewable energy penetration for both years. The supply of petroleum fuel constitutes 19% and 18% for 2017 and 2018 respectively which indicates a significant contribution to the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions to the environment. It further gives analysis from the system generated EB on Lesotho’s self-reliance on energy supply which shows 75% and 76% for 2017 and 2018 respectively from indigenous production mainly covered by unsustainable biomass used inefficiently by major population of Lesotho. The major portion of energy supply is from imports of electricity from Eskom and EDM, coal and coal products, petroleum fuel and liquefied petroleum gas from South African mines and refineries respectively which indicates Lesotho’s reliance on imports and hence less security of energy supply.