Nigerians will continue to depend on alternative sources of energy to power their households despite government’s reforms, as generated energy drops further to 3,634MW from this year’s peak output of 5,268MW. With household incomes tanking, there are concerns that many homes will remain in darkness as inflation hits consumers’ disposable income.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria revealed at the weekend that some of the power generating plants could not generate any megawatt of electricity on Friday, while it expects six out of the 27 existing electricity generation companies (Gencos) in the country to cut down their power production capacities over the next 10 days as they deal with reduced gas supply for power production.
The General Manager, Public Affairs, TCN, Ndidi Mbah, explained that the nation’s power sector was experiencing power supply shortage as a result of low gas supply. This, according to her, had restrained the ability of many thermal power stations to generate optimally.
TCN stated that thermal power plants affected by gas supply constraint include Sapele National Integrated Power Project, Olorunsogo NIPP, Ihovbor NIPP and Azura Edo power plants, as they generated zero megawatt of electricity on Friday.
“Other thermal power plants equally affected but generated at lower capacities include Egbin (Steam), Sapele (Steam), Delta (gas), Geregu (gas), Omotosho (gas), Olorunsogo (gas), Geregu NIPP, Alaoji NIPP, Omotosho NIPP, Odukpani NIPP, Okpai (Gas/Steam) and Omoku (gas) power generating plants,” TCN stated.
However, statistics from the Advisory Power Team in the Office of the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo showed that at the weekend, an average of 4,337MW of electricity could not get to the national grid for reasons such as gas supply shortage.
Osinbajo’s office also indicated that at the weekend, a meagre 3,664MW of electricity was distributed across the country, while N4.42 billion was lost as unearned revenue.
Last year, constrained revenue between January and December rose to N626.7b billion, as the National Electricity Transmission System, also known as power grid suffered a no less than 11 major collapse during the year, plunging the country into a blackout at various times.
According to the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), the operating environment remains challenging and depresses productivity in the manufacturing sector.
Specifically, the operators cited poor electricity and gas supplies/non-reliability of gas supply/scarcity of diesel/high cost of LPG as the highest impediment to production in the country.
