Why Nigeria Will Remain In Darkness—Minister

Why Nigeria Will Remain In Darkness

OpenLife Nigeria reports that following the energy crises that enveloped Nigeria yesterday, August 17, as a result of the industrial actions embarked upon by the National Union of Electricity Employees, NUEE, in which the national grid dropped to almost zero percent, the federal government has justified its inability to achieve its promised 5,000 megawatts (mw) of electricity generation for the country, saying it was due to shortage in gas supply.

Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu, who disclosed this, while speaking with newsmen after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House, Abuja, said whereas government had entered into a firm contract with the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) Plc, power generation had remained around 4,000 megawatts because of the challenge of gas.

He explained: “Regarding the drop of electricity, you know the supply has so many players, gas, the cost, issues of gas to some power plants. They cannot switch on their plant, if they do you will experience some drop, once they switch on, the electricity will increase.

“There may be drop due to fault of generator. It’s mostly generation. I’ve been watching since like yesterday (Tuesday) evening; we had generation of around 4,600 megawatts and you know, we told you since July 1, we’ve been able to raise it up to 5000 when we activated the contract.

“And we have not been able to do so due to some issues around gas contracts, gas to power, which we are trying to take care of. And we have gone very far with that and I believe it is for that reason that we’re able to reach up to 4,600.

“This morning, it dropped to 4,100. So, this is what is happening. You will be experiencing this fluctuation due to all these issues around gas to power, because gas is not something that we control directly; they will not give you gas until you pay. So, we are looking at ways to solve that issue.

“It is the reason we are unable to reach that 5000 we promised you by July 1 of this year. But as you will see from that date, we have been around 4,000 megawatts since then.”

According to him, the federal government had firm contracts with only five out of the 28 Power Generating Companies (GenCos) but had to extend it to more GenCos to stabilise supply at 5000MW as of July 1.
Over the years, industry analysts have consistently maintained that Nigeria must generate at least 180,000 megawatts of electricity to have adequate and stable power supply.

Source: ThisDay