It is three years now that the members of the association have been campaigning against the new coal power station in Tkibuli. The large opposition by Georgian NGOs has formed against the construction due to problems related to corruption, as well as other economic, environmental and social justice issues.
A number of field trips, articles, interviews and television reports have been dedicated to the Tkibuli Coal Power Station construction problem. However, we still have not seen any direct result of those activities, e.g. a Presidential Decree in favor of our concerns. It seems that further battles are ahead.
The association works hard to include the fuel poverty issue on the Government and IFIs' agenda. From our point of view, access to energy is one of the clearest indicators of social vulnerability under the present energy crisis in Georgia. Energy poverty, or the lack of access to energy, may be defined as the absence of sufficient choices in accessing adequate, affordable, reliable, high-quality, safe and environmentally sound energy services to support economic and human development. This lack of access to energy contributes to poverty, deprivation, and economic decline.
According to independent experts, an estimated 600,000 families in Georgia (about 70% of the population) are living beneath the poverty line, and this number is growing. In the present situation, both the rural and urban poor are unable to afford sources of electricity and gas. Especially in rural areas, the poor are forced to meet their heating and cooking needs by cutting firewood from neighboring forests. In urban areas this is supplemented with low-quality oil products (kerosene, mazut). The poor rely mostly on traditional energy carriers that involve lower up-front costs. A lack of reliable income forces poor people to choose less efficient devices that consume more energy for given services. At the same time, fuel cost is determined either by market price or implicitly in terms of the cost of time spent gathering. In other words, the poor pay more for energy than the rich. In any given situation, the biggest part of the Georgian population experience extreme fuel poverty while they are forced to pay 20% of their monthly income for energy demands.
We believe that relevant measures should be taken in terms of mitigating the fuel poverty for vulnerable groups in Georgia through diversified energy policy in urban and rural areas, thereby increasing energy security for the entire country.
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