Afghanistan's Kandahar Province Is About to Lose Most of Its Electricity

Along with thousands of troops, Special Forces operators, Hellfire missiles, and the rest of the US Army war machine pulling out of Afghanistan, the Americans plan to take the electricity with them, too.

As coalition forces leave the old Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, they plan to take diesel generators with them, according to the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

In a recently tabled report, addressed to top US officials in Afghanistan including Ambassador James Cunningham and US Forces command, SIGAR outlines how the US government plans to decline funding diesel powered electricity to Kandahar.

"The US has already begun to gradually reduce the amount of diesel fuel it supplies to power the generators that produce the vast majority of Kandahar's electricity," says the opening letter in the report. "[W]ith all diesel fuel deliveries scheduled to end by September 2015."

SIGAR notes that the Kajaki Dam Unit 2 Project, a massive hydroelectric project with continued security problems highlighted by past Taliban attacks, will not "generate anywhere near enough power" to fulfill "Kandahar's power needs."

The whole report was in response to a lengthy set of questions SIGAR put to the US government in June, inquiring on plans to provide electricity to Kandahar after December 2014.

In response, USAID and other American government actors said they plan on steadily withdrawing diesel up until September 2015, when it will cease supplying it altogether.

Along with handing over the lead in combat operations to the Afghans by the end of 2014, the US government said it plans for a "responsible transition" of American-funded diesel power to a "sustainable" supply for Kandahar provided by the Afghan government.

To make up for the energy shortfall after 2015, the American government says it commissioned a feasibility study to evaluate producing solar power in Kandahar province  along with plans to repair existing infrastructure.

SIGAR is entirely unimpressed with their plans for sustainable electricity in Kandahar, calling their solar study, "overly vague."

"Frankly, based on the information you provided in response to our inquiry, it appears that the US still has no realistic plan for helping the Afghan government develop a sustainable source of electricity for the period between the end of the Kandahar Bridging Solution in September 2015 and when a stable source of power generation is projected to come online, at least three years later," the SIGAR report noted.

The American body looking into Afghan reconstruction also points out that lack of electricity in an insurgent stronghold will hinder plans the government has of turning the tide against Taliban support in the region.

That being said, with persistent insurgent attacks in the Kandahar region, plans for the Kajaki Dam Unit 2 Project have been delayed, which would eventually relieve the stop-gap system of diesel power providing electricity to the embattled province.

The power problems underpin ongoing issues in the Central Asian conflict zone, where sectarian violence and a boiling Taliban insurgency has divided Afghanistan regionally.

Because of the crippling war, basic necessities are becoming the subject of armed rivalries. With clean water accessibility already a massive question mark in Afghanistan and surrounding nations, adding electricity (which will also become even costlier in Kandahar with the withdrawal of American funding) to the list of declining goods and services provided by the Kabul-based government, could inflame hostilities.

And as the population in Afghanistan booms, developing renewable energy will become increasingly critical. For now, even if solar power in Kandahar is a pipe dream, burning diesel isn't a sustainable future for power generation, either.

In the past USAID unveiled the ambitious "Afghan Clean Energy Project" aimed at bringing "hydro, solar, and wind power generators" to the country.  The project claimed minor victories like installing solar lamps to replace kerosene lamps in Kandahar and elsewhere, along with powering some schools and health centres with energy-efficient sources.

But like plenty of other things in Afghanistan, ambitious plans by the US government clearly took the back seat when the insurgency continued to eat away at funding projects and the overall combat operation.

In the end, whether it's hydroelectric power dams or something else in the search for clean Afghan energy, the future of Afghanistan rests in the hands of the inevitable showdown between government forces loyal to Kabul and the soon to be electricity starved Taliban units in and around Kandahar province.