A total of 10,106.8 megawatts of electricity could not be generated by the nation’s power plants last week amid lingering challenges in the Nigerian electricity supply industry.
Daily electricity generation in the country averaged 4,601.33MW last week as gas constraints and low load demand by electricity distribution companies limited power plants’ output.
The power plants connected to the national grid produced a total of 32,209.3MW last week, according to daily generation figures as of 6am collated from the Nigerian Electricity System Operator.
The plants could not produce 8,924.4MW because of gas supply challenges while 1,182.4MW generation capacity was left idle as a result of Discos’ low demand.
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The government-owned Nigeria Electricity Trading Plc buys electricity in bulk from generation companies through Power Purchase Agreements and sells through vesting contracts to the Discos, which then supply it to the consumers.
The NESO data showed that the power plants generated 4,482.55MW as of 6am on December 13, while 1,915.8MW was left unused.
The plants produced 4,719.13MW, 4,416.89MW and 4,514.7MW as of 6am last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday respectively but could not generate 1,672.4MW, 1,627MW and 1,495.8MW respectively.
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Total power generation rose to 4,559.4MW on Thursday and 4,785.70MW on Friday while unutilised capacity dropped to 1,418.6MW and 1,378.9MW respectively. On Saturday, the plants’ output fell to 4,730.93MW while unutilised generation capacity rose to 1,390.5MW.
The power sector lost an estimated N4.31bn from December 13 to last Friday “due to constraints from the insufficient gas supply, distribution infrastructure and transmission infrastructure”, the Advisory Power Team in the Office of the Vice-president said.
The country generates most of its electricity from gas-fired power plants, while output from hydropower plants account for about 30 percent of total generation. The hydropower plants are Kainji, Jebba, Shiroro and Dadin Kowa, which was connected to the grid this month.
The system operator put the nation’s installed generation capacity at 12,954.40MW; available capacity at 7,652.60MW; transmission wheeling capacity at 7,300MW; and the peak generation ever attained at 5520.4MW.
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission said recently Discos would be liable to the capacity charge for failure to take their entire load allocation caused by constraints in their networks. The government-owned Transmission Company of Nigeria, which manages the national grid, is responsible for the allocation of the load to the Discos.
“Where it is established that the TCN is unable to deliver load allocation, the TCN shall be liable to pay for the associated capacity charge,” NERC said in September.
It said NBET would continue to invoice the Discos for capacity charge and energy based on their load allocation and metered energy respectively in accordance with the December 2019 Minor Review of MYTO 2015 and Minimum Remittance Order for the Year 2020.
The Association of National Electricity Distributors, the umbrella body for the Discos, noted in its latest quarterly performance report that there had been no significant improvement in the electricity generated and wheeled by the TCN since 2015
