A review of the regular operational report of the Nigerian Electricity System Operators shows that electric energy produced did not exceed 120,000,000 kilowatts hour (KWh) for any day in March 2021. More so, the electricity produced was less than 100,000,000 KWh for nine days in the same period.
To put this in context, the average electrical energy produced in March 2021 was just enough to deliver 189W (three 60 watts bulbs) of electrical power to each of Nigeria’s 24 million households with access to electricity.
This estimate was arrived at thus: With Nigeria’s overall population at 207 million and an average of five people per household, it means Nigeria has about 41.4 million households in all. With the World Bank’s estimation that only 56.5 percent of Nigeria’s population have access to electricity, it then means only 24 million households in Nigeria have access to electricity.
So, how many household appliances can be powered by 200W of electricity? Besides, hypothetically, almost all, sawmill operations, manufacturing industries and, of course, hospitals serving these 24 million households would have to look for alternative electrical sources of energy.
According to a USAID report, on most days, Nigeria’s power sector “is only able to dispatch around 4,000 MW, which is insufficient for a country of over 195 million people.” Going by this USAID population estimate, it means that 4,000,000,000 watts of electricity is shared by over 23,400,000 households with access to electricity. Each household is then left with 171 watts.
Obviously, many households and businesses with access to electricity use up more than the average wattage, but this is possible because other households and firms are denied electricity at those times.
A recent report by John Ofikhenua, Nigeria recorded a daily electricity dispatch of less than 4,000MW. According to John “the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry (NESI), yesterday (Thursday 8th, 2021) recorded a dip in its power supply from 3,387Mw at 1:00 am to 2,805Mw in the day time.” The dip in power supply was attributed to gas constraint, he said.
Most times, the shortage of electricity generation is usually attributed to a shortage of gas supply.
Even the National electricity regulatory commission in its quarterly reports attributes the dip in electricity generation to shortage of electricity supply. NERC is the commission responsible for the regulation of the operational and commercial performance of the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI).
The Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) has the following industry participants: Federal Ministry of Power; Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission; Electricity Generation Companies (GenCos); Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN); Electricity Distribution Companies(DisCos); Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc; Gas Aggregator Company of Nigeria; Nigerian Electricity Management Service Agency (NEMSA); There are presently 23 grid-connected generating plants supplying power in the country.
Speaking via phone on the reasons for low generation of electricity in Nigeria, Engr. Kenechukwu Anajemba, a feeder manager at Enugu Electricity Distribution Company, explained that “One of the reasons for the low generation of electricity in Nigeria is because some generating companies are not ready to produce more power due to low-profit generation as a result of late payment of the bad debt by distribution companies.”
He went further to note that the unwillingness of electricity generating companies to produce more electricity is because they are also indebted to gas suppliers.
With a similar sentiment, Edu Okeke, an independent power producer and the Managing Director of Azura Power West Africa Ltd, speaking via a phone call interview on the reason for the gas shortage in power plants noted that “we (the Azura power plant) have never had any problem of gas shortage for electricity generation before.” He further explains that “the only time we didn’t have gas was because our gas supplier was maintaining his facilities and it is usually the right of the gas contractor assigned in the gas supplier contract to maintain his facilities.”
Clarifying further, he said “…the reason why we can make the claim not to have had gas shortage issue is that we have a gas contract. …but (for) GenCos that don’t have such gas contracts, of course, the gas suppliers are giving them on best endeavour … – best endeavour means I give you when I can, and if I can’t you have to understand. And that has been a problem for Gencos.”
For Gencos that are not supplied gas as this, it becomes a problem for them, leading to a possible shortage of electricity generation.
In a recent report, Taiwo Adebulu noted that “a final solution to the low gas supply to GenCos may not solve the electricity jinx in Nigeria.” He further stated, “if the GenCos operate half of its full capacity of 13,000MW, (that is 6,500MW) they will be compelled to shut down some of its thermal plants because the transmission infrastructure cannot wheel beyond 6,000 megawatts; while the DisCos, who are known for load rejection, cannot successfully send 5,000MW to Nigerian homes as a result of poor distribution network.”
Thus, efforts to fill up the shortfall in electricity generation would need to address the transmission and distribution bottlenecks.