By Grace Cofie
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company has said that 77 million Nigerians lack access to power supply.
This was disclosed by the Group Executive Director, Gas and Power, NNPC, Mohammed Ahmed, during a plenary session at the World Energy Day Conference 2021, with the theme, Energy Transition: Gas as Fuel of Choice’, organised by the Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Mohammed Ahmed, who was represented by the Managing Director, NNPC Gas and Power Investment Limited, Salihu Jamari, told participants at the event that 77 million Nigerians were still yet to gain access to electricity.
He further stated that Nigeria had about 200 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves that could be used for power generation.
The Managing Director, Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading PLC (NBET), Nnaemeka Ewelukwa, had provided statistics on misalignments in the power value chain, saying that about 14,000 megawatts of electricity was contracted to power generation companies.
This statistics of the quantum of Nigeria’s electricity demand were given in terms of what was contracted, available capacity, what was produced, among others.
Ewelukwa said, “In terms of situating the gas discussion within the context of tht power sector, we have some misalignments in the value chain which the government is trying to address.
“And that misalignment starts with the fact that in terms of the demand for electricity in the country, it is about 28, 000MW. But when you look at the contracted capacity for electricity, it is about 14,000MW.
“You look at the current available capacity of electricity in terms of what was contracted, it is about 7,600MW. You look at the transmission capacity, it is about 8,100MW.”
He added that, “Now, of all these statistics the most important is what is the highest volume of electricity ever put on the grid; it is about 5,800MW. So you see that it keeps dropping.”
Ewelukwa explained that 5,800MW was the highest peak ever attained in the history of Nigeria, but stressed that what was actually available on a day-to-day basis was between 4,000MW and 5,000MW.
“And of that 4,000MW to 5,000MW, because of issues relating to tariff, such as concerns about cost reflective, what actually is paid on a monthly basis by the distribution companies is not up to that 4,000MW that is available,” the NBET Boss stated.
However, he noted that there were plans by the government to address the issues.
