In recent times, Nigerians have experienced a drop in electricity supply and this has been pinned down on gas shortages and collapse of various generating grids.
According to reports, power generation is struggling to stay above the 3000Mega Watts mark as gas problems and low load demand is said to be limiting factors.
Latest data obtained from the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing on Tuesday showed a generation capacity of 2,672.6MW to be idle because of low energy demand by the electricity distribution companies.
At the end of last week, twelve out of the nation’s 27 power plants were affected by low energy demand.
Due to gas constraints, a generation capacity of 862.5MW was unavailable as of 6am that day according to reports.
These limitations hugely affected the operations in five power plants, namely Geregu I, Afam VI, Geregu NIPP, Sapele NIPP and Gbarain NIPP.
Speaking in a recent power sector stakeholders meeting, The Minister of Power Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, said…
“Those who know and who genuinely desire to solve problems in this industry do not need to be told that the most pressing challenge of the sector today lies at the distribution end.
“Amongst the challenges at this sector of the value chain (and there are problems in gas, generation and transmission), the most urgent is distribution of available energy to consumers, and there is an unused energy in the region of 2,000 megawatts in this category.” he said.
Grid collapse is also a limiting factor to the electricity supply drop according to data obtained from the ministry.
According to these data, this year alone, the national grid has so far recorded 10 total and one partial collapse.
A total grid collapse would mean total blackout nationwide, while partial system collapse is a failure of a section of the grid according to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission.
The latest total collapse occurred on September 20, 2018.
The low load demand by generating Discos on Saturday affected generation and distribution by major electricity generating plants across the country.
The affected plants were Egbin, Geregu I, Omotosho I, Olorunsogo I, Alaoji NIPP, Olorunsogo NIPP, Omotosho NIPP, Ihovbor NIPP, Azura-Edo IPP, Rivers IPP, Delta, and Afam VI.
Although 5000MW is the target spoken of, the Nation’s total electricity generation, stood at 3,274.50MW as of 6am on Saturday.
Average generation capacity has been hovering around 3,000MW and 3,500MW in recent months.
This figure now coupled with the recent contraints, stakeholders says, are the reasons for the drop in electricity supply in the Nation.
