By Augustine Aminu
As Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation grapples with grossly inadequate and unreliable power supply, the Association of Nigeria Energy Distributors (ANED) has said that the country needs to about 30,000MW to guarantee stable supply of electricity.
Nigeria is endowed with large oil, gas, hydro and solar resources, and it has the potential to improve its power generation capacity to significant level from existing plants. Regrettably, no significant improvement has been over the years, in spite of the huge investments aimed at changing the narrative in the sector.
Consequently, previous projections by experts and political actors have been rendered mere lips service as the country’s power supply remains acutely epileptic and insufficient. However, by projections, Nigeria should be generating 40,000 megawatts while a recent plan indicated leapfrog to 30 gigawatts by 2030.
The association also called for the decentralisation of the national grid to ensure improved transmission and distribution of power in Africa’s most populous nation.
Executive Director of Research and Advocacy at ANED, Mr. Sunday Oduntan made the observation on Tuesday in Lagos at a workshop organised by ANED in collaboration with the Macarthur Foundation Project.
The workshop had as its theme: “Building Consumer Awareness and Strengthening the Customer Service Capacity of Electricity Distribution Companies’’
Mr. Oduntan said Nigeria with a population of more than 200 million people was currently generating less than 5,000MW which was grossly inadequate to meet the energy needs of the nation.
“According to available statistics, there are 32 million households in Nigeria. If Nigeria can generate 30,000MW today, we will have 24 hours of electricity in Nigeria.
“South Africa has a population of 67 million people and are generating 46,000MW which is more than enough for the country”, he said.
He noted that only 28 power plants in Nigeria were currently operational with 25 powered by gas while three were hydro power stations, adding that the thermal (gas-powered plants) were faced with challenges such as gas constraints and inadequate capacity utilisation to the detriment of the country.
“Even the power being generated cannot be effectively transmitted due to reliance on a single grid system. We have a National Grid still owned by the Federal Government against what was agreed on during the power sector privatisation process.
“There is the need to decentralise the grid. That is what we should have done with the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN). The government needs to privatise the company to enable better transmission of the power being generated”, he further explained.
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Mr. Oduntan, who is the spokesperson for the electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) enjoined the companies to deploy modern technologies to improve their services to customers. He however maintained that the Discos could only distribute the volume of power allocated to them by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to their customers.
He equally advised customers to join the campaign against energy theft and by-passing of prepaid meters by some unscrupulous persons which was causing revenue losses for the electricity sector.
Similarly, National Association For Energy Economics (NAEE) recently estimated that Nigeria would need to generate no less than five billion megawatts of electricity each year to address the chronic energy deficiency in the country, recent study has indicated.
President of the NAEE, Prof. Yinka Omorogbe disclosed this while speaking at the opening of the 15th National Association For Energy Economics/ International Association For Energy Economics (NAEE/IAEE) annual conference in Abuja.
Prof. Omoregbe who spoke in tandem with the theme of the conference, “Energy Transition and Climate Change: Pathways for Sustainable Development in Africa”, observed that renewables play an essential role in Africa’s Energy Mix, and so does petroleum.
According to her, renewables are probably the primary hope for the 50 per cent of Nigerians and presents great potential for off-grid communities in Nigeria and other African countries. She also stressed that decisive action is needed to provide access to clean energy for those presently living without it. “Energy access should be just, inclusive, and equitable, with no one left behind”, she stated.
In his remarks at the NAEE/IAEE conference, the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo reassured the stakeholders that the bottlenecks are being addressed while noting that accelerated investment in transmission and distribution of over $3 billion will put Nigeria on a path to 10GW of electricity.
Prof Osinbajo, who was represented by the Special Adviser to the President on Infrastructure, Ahmad Zakari, said the fund is being provided as interventions from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Siemens partnership, World Bank and African Development Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). French Development Agency and others.
“We need more electricity for our large population, that is why this administration continues to invest in expanding generation to cater for our current and future needs. The Okpai ph II plant, the Afam III fast power plant, the Zungeru Hydro plant, and the Kashimbilla Hydro plant will add more than 1000MW of capacity in both gas and renewable segments.
“This administration has transformed the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) into a renewable energy-driven organisation with Solar power at its heart, the five million Solar Connections Program – Solar Power Naija aims to electrify 25 million citizens through the private sector and public-private partnerships and is the largest off-grid connections program in Africa”, he added.
Meanwhile, the prevailing situation of the nation’s power sector has attributed largely to several factors including poor gas supply, fault in generating units of generating companies, scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, all of which have caused most power generating companies to limit their generation, and sometimes not generate at all.
According to the data, the capacity utilisation rate in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) remained low at only about 54.57 per cent of the available capacity as of 2021 due to technical and operational constraints from gas shortage, transmission and network constraints and commercially induced low load offtake by Discos. This year alone, the national electricity grid has collapsed at least five times with its associated disruptions to commercial and social activities.
Notably, power supply in the country, according to a recent article published by THISDAY newspaper, has always been erratic, although it has gone worse in recent times, with hope waning as to whether the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration will be able to make any marked difference in the remaining months.
