2017: How electricity grid hit 5,222MW as customers await more supply, meters
In 2017, Nigeria’s electricity reached a highest state of 5,222 megawatts (MW) generation in December, but many customers still claimed the supply was elusive, decried higher bills as they anxiously wait for metering to get accurate bill for what they consume.
Daily Trust on Sunday review of the power sector in 2017 shows that Nigeria was in a sorry state from January 2017 when about 24 electricity generation companies (GenCos) decried worsening paucity of funds, such that they could not even pay for gas to generate more power.
The GenCos blamed the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) for paying only about 30per cent of their monthly invoices for energy delivered to the 11 distribution companies (DisCos) to service over six million electricity customers.
The result of this protracted liquidity crisis was that the national electricity grid dropped, most times to just 2,500MW. The DisCos, on their part, blamed the liquidity crisis on energy theft, poor attitude of customers to paying electricity debts, including the over N90bn debts owed by security agencies and ministries, departments and agencies (over N50bn was cleared in 2017 and the multiple legacy debts on their balance sheet hindering them from getting fresh investment funding).
The situation continued until March when the Federal Government announced a N701.9bn from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to the NBET to enable them pay the GenCos additional 50 per cent of their monthly invoices to drive prompt payment for gas and other expenses from January 2017 to 2019.
The N701bn Payment Assurance Guarantee (PAG), however, did not start until June when payments for January and February were made. As at December, payments have been made up to October, the NBET record shows.
Record of key achievements in the power sector in the ending year shows that Nigeria now has a 7,000MW electricity generation capacity. A 7,000MW transmission wheeling capacity was also announced in the mid-year, with a drastic decrease in the cases of system collapses of the grid that had been throwing the nation into partial and sometimes total blackouts.
To tackle distribution challenges, which is still at 5,000MW, government declared the Eligible Customer rule in May, and the regulation was issued by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) in October.
It now allows certain customers, especially industries which have the facilities and funding to buy power directly from the GenCos while severing their loyalty to the DisCos. This way, the DisCo’s network will become freer to deliver better service to the residential customers who are often in blackout.
Due to the interventions and improved gas supply to the GenCos, the national grid also rose significantly in the year from the 5,074MW reached on February 2, 2016 to 5,155MW on December 8, 2017; it further rose to 5,222MW on December 18.
As the year ends, the lingering challenge includes the lack of adequate distribution networks to evacuate the high power generation as it is claimed that the grid from the DisCos’ end can’t take more than 5,500MW, resulting in a stranded 2,000MW at the GenCos.
More so, the DisCos said many communities hardly paid for power, along with other issues, they reject a significant quantum of the generated power, at times reaching over 2,000MW daily. This is a huge challenge that was left unresolved in 2017.
While Nigerians eagerly await metering to curb the estimated billing system, claimed to be extortive, the NERC could not deliver a final regulation on Meter Asset Providers and a new metering regulation to fast track the process, even when the Minister of Power, Works and Housing had anticipated it would be ready before November 2017.