‘Nigeria Requires 30,000MW Electricity Generation To Meet Current Demand’

The Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors(ANED), the umbrella body of Electricity Distribution Companies, (DisCos) has estimated that Nigeria requires 30,000 megawatts of electricity generation to meet current demand of electricity by consumers.

The executive director, Research and Advocacy of ANED, Sunday Oduntan, in his presentation at a one day workshop on, “Building Consumer Awareness and Strengthening the Customer Service Capacity Of Electricity Distribution Companies” in Lagos yesterday said, since 1960 the country has not generated up to 6,000 megawatts of electricity thus creating huge gap in service delivery in the system.

Oduntan disclosed that the 28 power generation companies in Nigeria which comprise of three hydro powered stations and 25 thermal stations currently operate below capacity and collectively generating average of about 4,000 megawatts.

According to him, with 32 million Nigerians on the grid system an average of 1,000 megawatts is needed to serve a cluster of one million population.
He however, pointed out, that with 210 million population, Nigeria would require a 100 000 megawatts of electricity to serve such huge population.
He also, called for privatisation of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, (TCN, which it said has contributed to poor performance of the sector.
Oduntan, noted that the DisCos cannot be able to pay for electricity purchased from the Generation Companies, GenCos due to what he described and energy dumping and in most cases inadequate supply to meet customer requirements.