Nigeria's Power Generation Sector Loses N1.870bn daily
If one of the most competent former governors in Nigeria, as minister, cannot fix our power issues, Nigeria may be for a very long paralysis. The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, needs support: “Nigeria’s electricity generation capacity dropped from the 5,222.3 megawatts (MW) attained earlier this year to 2,329.9 MW on May 6.” According to the Guardian, the national peak demand during the same time was 19,100MW. That disparity explains the present Nigerian quagmire.
Nigeria’s electricity generation capacity dropped from the 5,222.3 megawatts (MW) attained earlier this year to 2,329.9 MW on May 6.This meant that e country lost about 3,710.8MW due to gas, line and frequency constraints, which is the equivalent of N1.870billion, according to the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI). On this same day, the country’s national peak demand was 19,100MW…
The solution may not be imminent as companies like Forte Oil are disinvesting from power generation. You need these companies to believe in the power business if we do hope to find a solution. But they cannot believe when the sector loses about “N1.870bn in one day”.
This was the view of various shareholder groups, who spoke on the recent announcement of the oil marketer’s plans to divest upstream services and power businesses in Nigeria.
According to Quartz in a newsletter, "Between 2010 to 2014, the average annual consumption per capita in sub-Saharan Africa was equivalent to just 4% of consumption per capita in the United States...In fact, even though it has a population a quarter the size of Nigeria’s, South Africa has four times the installed generation capacity."
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