The Nigerian Government has revealed that over 40 percent of electricity consumers in the country are currently enjoying over 20 hours of regular and stable electricity.
Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu disclosed this in a statement, while reviewing the activities of the Ministry in the last one year, as the country marks its 64th Independence Anniversary.
Adelabu attributed the achievements to the steps that were taken by the Ministry with the support of President Bola Tinubu as part of his renewed hope agenda to galvanise the economy.
According to the Minister, one of the major and significant achievements of his ministry, within the last one year is that “today, Nigeria is generating over 5,500 megawatts of power.”
He said the Ministry is working to improve on this record by the end of the year, as power supply constitutes one of the campaign promises of President Bola Tinubu.
He explained that most developed nations in order to achieve reliable, functional, and affordable electricity, especially for their industries, businesses, institutions, and households gave priority to the power sector.
“This is why you see great economies like Korea, China, Europe, and North America industrialised today. Their stability in electricity supply has been instrumental to their economic growth and industrial development.
“A country like South Korea, industrial giants like Samsung, Hyundai and LG didn’t just become global giants overnight. They were supported by the government through the provision of stable and reliable electricity for their operations. This is the vision we have for Nigeria. At the end of the day, a large proportion of our population will be electrified, industries will enjoy stable electricity, and this will increase production and create employment for our people.
“That’s why we say that we must achieve this for Nigeria as a country. We need to achieve the requisite economic growth and industrial development. Our dear president, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, included this in the Renewed Hope Agenda as a major electoral policy to Nigerians in his New Year speech on the 1st of January, 2024,” he said.
He further emphasised the need for the country to have stable, functional and reliable electricity to drive other critical sectors, saying “this is the only way we can achieve the required economic growth and industrial development. In fact, none of the critical sectors can function optimally without electricity stability and functionality.
“Our vision is to ensure that we provide households, businesses, and institutions (educational and health institutions as well as industries) with stable electricity supply. This will enable them to power their activities, improve their capacity, and create more jobs.”
National Development
The Minister explained that the mandate of the ministry is to engender national development through the formulation of appropriate policies, the establishment of proper structures and institutions to ensure or achieve stable, functional, reliable, and affordable electricity supply to households, businesses, institutions, and industries.
“This will enable us to achieve the desired economic growth and industrial development. We also provide general oversight to ensure the overall well-being of the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry (NESI). This is the mandate of the Ministry.”
On Collaboration, the Minister revealed that the Ministry is working in conjunction with agencies like the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC); Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN); Rural Electrification Agency (REA); Nigerian Electricity Management Service Agency (NEMSA); Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Company (NBET); National Power Training Institute (NAPTIN); and Nigerian Electricity Liability Management Company (NELMCO).
“These are agencies under the Ministry of Power who are like our foot soldiers.
“Apart from the agencies under the Ministry of Power, we also operate through 27 Power generating companies, including hydroelectric power companies and thermal companies (which are gas-powered generating companies). We also have 11 Electricity Distribution Companies across the country that operates.
“In generation, we rely on the generating companies. In transmission, we rely on the government-owned Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which is a direct agency under the Ministry of Power, while in distribution, we rely on the 11 distribution companies that we have across the country,” he explained.
He further disclosed that the Ministry is in partnership with some international development agencies like the World Bank, the African Development Bank, GIZ, USAID and others to support the Ministry of Power.
Reviewing the Ministry’s achievement, Adelabu, said upon resumption, over 13,000 megawatts have been generated while 4000 megawatts of Power produced, transmitted and distributed to the entire country.
“This was quite low and unacceptable given our population and level of economic activities. Therefore, we were determined to improve the situation”
“Moreover, the major achievement is the fact that today we generate over 5,500 megawatts of power, we transmit and distribute it, and over 40% of customers today enjoy over 20 hours of regular power supply across the nation. You can see that there is a significant improvement between when we came in and now, which we intend to improve further,” he stressed.
Reflecting on how this feat was achieved, the Minister recognised the signing into law of the new electricity act of 2023 by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in June 2023.
Thus he said they achieved two things: Decentralisation of the electricity/power sector, whereby subnational governments can now play a role in the sector. This means states and local governments can participate in generation, transmission, and distribution. Previously, we had a centralized system with the Electricity Company of Nigeria (ECN), the National Electricity Power Authority (NEPA), and the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
This new act gave power to subnational governments to be able to participate in the power sector, which is more like having a distributed system rather than a centralized system.
Liberalisation of the sector, which means beyond government, we are able to attract the private sector to also participate in the Nigerian Electricity supply industry. This new act achieved decentralization and liberalization of the sector.
“The second thing we did was to put in place a comprehensive policy for the sector, which was not there before. The Power Sector Reform Act (PSRA) that has been there since 2013 is already outdated. What we did was to put together, through a lot of hard work with all the industry stakeholders, the National Integrated Electricity Policy and Strategic Implementation Plan.”
The third thing was to look at the market, tariff, and liquidity because the bane of many sectors is in the commercials. If the pearson is not right, it is not likely that the operations would be right. So we looked at it and we felt that for this sector to perform optimally, there must be an adjustment to the pearson model that was in place. This is why we achieved a partial cost-reflective tariff.
“We made some adjustments in tariff policy that actually ensure that a portion of the customers pay tariffs that are cost-reflective, reflecting the cost of producing power, while the other portion of the customers continue to enjoy government subsidy. That’s one of the reasons why we are able to improve liquidity in the sector, and we can see the improved performance of the distribution and generating companies.
“They are now incentivized and they know that once they’re able to supply a minimum of 20 hours of electricity to a particular feeder, they can upgrade it or migrate them to Band A customers and charge cost-reflective tariffs, which is why we also call it a service-reflective tariff. You cannot charge that tariff unless you are able to deliver a minimum of 20 hours of power supply. The feedback we have been getting from the market suggests that a good number of customers have started enjoying over 20 hours of supply of electricity.
“The fourth thing we did was to work on infrastructure, upgrading and enhancing transmission and distribution infrastructure. The first thing we mentioned there was the Presidential Power Initiative, which we all worked on as a fulfilment project.
“We signed an acceleration agreement to ensure that we accelerated the implementation of that particular project. Within a year, we completed the pilot phase of this project, which involved importing 10 power transformers and 10 power mobile substations. They have arrived, we have installed them, and we have commissioned them.
“Therefore, the electricity stability that we enjoy today is not by accident. It’s because of all these transformers and mobile substations that we commissioned and installed.“
Unfinished Projects
Secondly, he said the ministry identified unfinished projects of the Transmission Company of Nigeria upon resumption.
“There were over 100 uncompleted projects involving substations and power lines. We moved into these projects to assess how much of them we could complete within a short period of time, and we’re making good progress in this regard.
“We also had a number of transmission expansion projects being supported by the World Bank and the African Development Bank. We are trying to complete all of these projects, and they are also contributing to the stability of the transmission network
“The Niger Delta Power Company also did a lot of work when it comes to transmission and distribution infrastructure, and this has been reflected in the stability of transmission and distribution.
“There is the issue of the meter gap that we have. We all know that out of almost 13 million customers that we have in the industry, over 7 million customers are still without meters and are on estimated billing. We said this is not the way to go. We must correct this, which is why President Bola Ahmed Tinubu set up the Presidential Metering Initiative, which has the mandate of installing over 10 million meters within the next five years, at least 2 million meters on a yearly basis. We are making progress on this. The funds are being provided, and we will soon go into the acquisition of these meters. This would reduce the meter gap.
“We have also liberalised the meter market, allowing DisCos to encourage customers to buy their meters and have them installed. This is why we have seen an increase in the meter penetration in the industry today.”
Still on metering, the Minister said the World Bank is also supporting in the Distribution Recovery Program (DISREP), whereby they are procuring and installing 1.8 million meters.
“The contract for about 1.5 million meters has already been awarded, and within the next two months, these meters will start arriving. These are the programs that we have to upgrade and enhance the infrastructure across the transmission and distribution segment of the power sector value chain.”
Energy Transition
Furthermore, the Miniater said there is the energy transition plan being used to expand our energy access expansion to take electricity to the conserved, especially the rural dwellers and rural businesses.
“And again, we are using it as a tool to transition into cleaner forms of energy. These are the two things that we use this for.
“There is the energy transition plan. We are using energy transition as a two-way sort. First is to expand our energy access expansion to ensure that we take electricity to the conserved, especially the rural dwellers and the rural businesses. And again, we are using it as a tool to transition into cleaner forms of energy. These are the two things that we use this for.
“Let me also inform you that, we have some isolated institutions like educational and health institutions, such as teaching hospitals and some military formations, which are actually using mini-grids to complement their supply. Those that are on the national grid are making it a metered connected mini-grid by installing solar grids to these institutions.”
The Minister also announced a special electricity supply to the nation’s Universities and other institutions, to avoid incessant cut of power supply to them and for them to continue to enjoy low tariff.
“We have a program which we call the Nigerian Electrification Program, whereby we have about 34 universities to be energized through solar energy sources. I think we have completed about 13 now, and they are almost due for commissioning. We have plans to do this for some of the teaching hospitals and some of our military formations.
“The agency of the ministry that’s in charge of this is the Rural Electrification Agency, and I can tell you that by the time we roll out the data of the underserved communities where we have installed these mini-grids, you’d be amazed.
“We have electrified over three million people through these mini-grids across the rural areas nationwide. We also have what we call the solar home systems that we give to each household, providing them with some point of light, some point to charge their phones, and some points for farming. We have distributed these to millions of Nigerians and continue to do so. We have the support of the World Bank and the AFDB to ensure that these programs are successful,” he added.
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