Electricity supply drop on gas shortage, grid collapse casts doubt to FG’s promises
High confidence of many Nigerian power users on the ability of the current administration to grow steady electricity supply has continued of serial collapse due to high incidence of power outages caused by grid collapse and plant shut down from time to time.
Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), has explained that a total system collapse means total blackout nationwide, while partial system collapse is a failure of a section of the grid as the last collapse was recorded on 20th of last month.
Since last quarter to this month, reports show that electricity supply in the country has been struggling to stay above 3,000 megawatts.
The sad development is linked to issues around gas shortage and power grid collapse which have continued to cause glaring limitations in generations.
Latest findings show that low load demand by power distribution companies and gas problems are inhibiting the generation of over 3,000 megawatts of electricity, our correspondent has learnt.
Figures sourced from the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing this week, revealed that 12 out of the nation’s 27 power plants were affected by low energy demand by the electricity distribution firms on Saturday, causing a generation capacity of 2,672.6MW to be idle.
A paragraph from the latest data at the Ministry revealed that a generation capacity of 862.5MW was unavailable as of 6am that day as a result of gas constraints, which affected five power plants, namely Geregu I, Afam VI, Geregu NIPP, Sapele NIPP and Gbarain NIPP.
Besides, since 2019, the entire national grid has so far recorded 11 collapses – 10 total, while one was partial, according to the data from the ministry.
Already, several power plants have been compelled to shut down or downgrade output as a result of low load demand by the Discos and gas shortfall.
Whereas Nigeria’s total electricity generation stood at 3,274.50MW as of 6am on Saturday, under the Multi Year Tariff Order load allocation, the 11 Discos in the country share the total volume of power generated by the Gencos based on their customer base.
Currently, plants affected by the low load demand by the Discos on Saturday 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.
However, at the height of these back and forth, the Minister of Power Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, at a recent meeting with stakeholders in the power sector, said, “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.”
