Nigeria’s power sector has recorded losses amounting to N365 billion in the first half of 2020, H1’20, attributable to insufficient gas supply, distribution and transmission infrastructure.
This represents 23% increase year-on-year (YoY) when compared to N279.81 billion losses suffered in H1’19.
A breakdown showed that, in the first half of 2020, the losses stood at N56.4 billion, N55 billion and N66 billion in January, February and March respectively. In April, May and June 2020, the losses stood at N64.6 billion, N61.6 billion and N61.8 billion respectively.
The losses, which also occurred mainly because of inadequate infrastructure, equipment failure and low water reserves, were recorded along the value chain by generation companies (GenCos) and the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), involved in the generation and transmission of power respectively.
Statistics from the National Control Centre, (NCC) showed that the average energy sent out to the 11 Discos by TCN in H1’20 surged marginally by 0.3% to 3,958 megawatts, when compared to 3,948mw recorded in the corresponding period in 2019.
The statistics showed that of 28 generating plants, 26 sent out an average of 4,896.99mw in H1’20 to the TCN thus, indicating an increase of 19.3% when compared to 3,949.6mw sent out by 27 generating plants in H1’19.
The report said that in the first half of 2020, ASCO and AES generating plants did not generate any power.
Similarly, in the corresponding period of 2019, Dadin Kowa Power Station, Egbin ST6, ASCO and AES generating plants did not generate electricity. However, this development exposed the inability of the nation’s power sector chain, including, Discos, TCN, and Gencos to meet the expectation of consumers.
The Executive Secretary, Association of Power Generation Companies (GenCos), Mrs Joy Ogayi, said: “This shows low/minimal optimisation of generation capacity due to constraints on the transmission and distribution networks.
Without these constraints, additional 3,000mw could be made available to customers and serve as an incentive for Generation Companies, GenCos, to recover the unavailable capacity of over 5,000mw.
“For the short term, Nigeria needs to optimise what is available and what can be recovered, while in the medium to long term with effective planning, Nigeria can achieve new capacities by embracing renewables and suspend thermals,” she said.
By Chibisi Ohakah, Abuja
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