在非洲搬家

There is general agreement that spatial data is key to sustainable resource management and overall economic development. A Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) in turn provides the underlying foundation for accessing and using spatial data in decision-making processes. The author shows how SDI is being utilised by the Lesotho Electricity Corporation so to assist in national sustainable development programmes.

莱索托政府通过其旅游部，环境和文化部认识到，生物圈中环境组成部分与人类行为的相互作用是多方面的。由此产生的复杂界面要求采用跨学科的方法来管理人类对环境的影响，反之亦然。因此，政府不仅在其自己的机构中，而且在莱索托电力公司（LEC）等组织中努力探索SDI问题。这些问题涉及开发针对SDI开发的技术方案，并探索SDI应用模型，以支持决策者和利益相关者获得有关可持续发展的专用领域的适当和及时信息。

莱索托电力公司
就1969年《 LEC法》的术语，该公司是负责在全国范围内发电，传播和分配电力的垂直整合的公共垄断。LEC与主要的水电坝结构有关。一个是非洲最大的水项目：减少对南非邻近兰德地区的不断增长的水需求，以及莱索托适当的水力发电发电，与南非南非电力公司埃斯科姆（Eskom）合作。LEC的主要目标是：

• to generate, transmit and distribute electricity; to establish, acquire, maintain and operate transmission lines and works for that purpose, and to acquire existing generating plants
• to extend electricity at minimum cost
• 进行研究，实验或试验，以改善发电，分配或使用电力的方法。

The Board of Directors is the highest executive body of the LEC. The government of Lesotho, advised by the board, appoints the managing director who is responsible for the day-to-day running of the Corporation, assisted by the management team.

购物车技术
LEC has been undertaking many electrification projects to increase the customer base and extend electricity supply throughout the country. The technology currently employed by the LEC is the Computer Aided Reticulation of Townships system (CART), which is not very different from the SwedNet phased out as CART was introduced into the system not long ago. Areas are normally earmarked for community development projects, after which a GPS is used to find their coordinates. The intention is then to map the project areas using CART in conjunction with Bentley’s MicroStation so as to put them on the map and identify specific households and buildings to be electrified. LEC also buys digital maps from the Department of Lands and Surveys. These maps are destined to plot the existing network at different voltage levels using MicroStation.

SDI Initiatives
The Lesotho Electricity Corporation intends to embark on a Statistical Metering Project to find a means of balancing energy supplied at bulk-supply level to that received and recorded at the distribution end of the business. The aim is to determine the current level of technical and non-technical losses in the network system. To allow continuous monitoring of system losses, a method will be found of geographically identifying areas of high non-technical loss and forming strategies to reduce this. The long-term objective is to reduce non-technical losses to 5%. This will be achieved through installation and subsequent monitoring of statistical meters at critical points of the electrical network as part of a broad revenue-protection strategy also encompassing other activities such as meter inspection surveys.

Statistical Meters
The installation of statistical meters is to be implemented in three phases. Phase 1 consists of the confirmation of identified critical network points, detailed planning of data required and systems to be used for analysis, and finalisation of the approach and methodology to be employed. Phase 2 will result in equipment acquisition and implementation of the project; Phase 3 will lead to analysis of the data and establishment of the means for continuous monitoring. Prepayment customers are being grouped according to their respective feeders for input into the system. Once the project is completed there should be no manual punching in of electricity meter readings onto spreadsheets and databases. This is meant to avoid errors by officers and any temptation to provide fiddled data. In this connection, there will be optical-eye equipment for electronic data download.

处理软件
Software will be Windows server-based. The use of voluminous spreadsheets will be avoided and all reports will be automated. The system will have user-defined passwords for different access levels and multiple users. This system will integrate both the prepayment and credit billing systems to calculate system losses. Lastly, data validation and verification will be built-in. There will be some stipulated required outputs at the end of the project, including establishment of a system to monitor system losses, provision of management tools for verifying statistical metering results, detailed management reporting mechanism and recommendations on strategies to deal with high-risk areas. The Statistical Metering System project is meant to take off by mid-2005.

地理注释
莱索托王国是一个完全被南非共和国包围的山区。它覆盖了30,350平方公里的面积，使其成为非洲最小的国家之一。该国分为四个主要地区，即西高原沿线的低地，森奎尔河谷，山麓和山脉。出于行政的目的，该国分为十个地区。由于地形，气候条件是高度可变的。整个国家的平均降雨量为每年750毫米，高地接收最高760毫米，其次是北部地区，为750mm；南部地区的降雨量最低690mm。低地的温度从夏季的最高32摄氏度到冬季的最低–2摄氏度不等。莱索托的德·约尔人口估计为200万，其中估计有30％的人居住在高地，山麓丘陵中有20％，其余的位于低地，那里的首都马塞鲁（Maseru）设有。