Public Electricity Supply in Portuguese Guinea, 1930-1974

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Stoppok, Manfred:
Public Electricity Supply in Portuguese Guinea, 1930-1974.
In: HoST : Journal of History of Science and Technology. Bd. 19 (2025) Heft 1 . - S. 100-128.
ISSN 1646-7752
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/host-2025-0005

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Abstract

Guinea-Bissau has a chronically underperforming electricity sector that fails to provide most of the population outside of the capital, Bissau, with access to electricity – nowadays considered a basic human need. Little is known about the evolution of this large socio-technical system. Archival research reveals the conditions under which the electricity supply and distribution system was set up. Between the 1930s and 1950s, a system of isolated mini-grids was established in the capital, Bissau, and the towns of the interior. It was expanded in the 1960s and adapted to military needs during the Bissau-Guinean war of independence (1963-1974). Maintenance was a major challenge for the colonial administration. The systems of isolated mini-grids suffered from poor technical quality of the installations, poor maintenance, lack of administrative management capacity, and consumers not paying for their consumption. Post-colonial Guinea-Bissau inherited an electricity sector with systemic challenges that persist to this day.