Data is new king for solution to critical problems, say GenCos
THE NONAVAIL ABILITY OF reliable data is partly responsible for the blame game being played in the Nigerian electricity market, the electricity generation companies (GenCos) operating in Nigeria have said, as the country continues to be in a state of stagnant growth and development because of epileptic power supply. The Nigerian electricity industry is largely split into three major parts namely, generation, transmission and distribution.
The industry is performing poorly and on the brink of collapse due to bad debts, low revenue collection, lack of investments, and ignorance and misinformation on the part of consumers, among others. As a result, no one wants to take responsibility for its shortcomings. GenCos would blame the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and the electricity distribution companies (DisCos), who on the other hand would turn to blame each other and the GenCos.
This petty behaviour is counter-productive because it doesn’t solve any problems the industry is being plagued by, but it also makes the industry players hostile towards having a meaningful conversation to changing the electricity space in Nigeria.
Yet, to get to the root cause of the problems of the industry and which part of the industry it is emanating from, data remains indispensable to solving the problems.
Joy Ogaji, executive secretary, Association of Power Generating Companies (APGC), speaking on behalf of the GenCos explained that the narrative in Nigeria’s power sector has constantly moved from the lack of adequate generation capacity to transmission inadequacy and now distribution challenges, and the lack of dependable data is the reason these postulations have not been truly tested yet.