Nigeria’s available power generation capacity fell by 981.8 megawatts between 2015 and August 2022 despite the over N1.51tn intervention in the sector by the Federal Government since the current administration came on board in 2015.
This came as the national grid collapsed 98 times under the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari.
A document on Power Generation Trend (2013 – August 2022), obtained in Abuja from the Association of Power Generation Companies, the umbrella body of electricity producers, indicated that while available power generation capacity was 6,616.28MW in 2015, it dropped to 5,634.47MW as at August this year.
It was also gathered that the total power generation capacity loss for the sector between 2015 and August 2022 rose to N1.76tn, as operators and experts decried the sorry state of the industry since it was unbundled in November 2013.
Although further analysis of the document showed that the available generation capacity fluctuated between 2015 and 2022, data from the report indicated that the quantum of available generation in Nigeria was not impressive, particularly since last year.
It must be noted that the available generation capacity is different from the average utilised generation, as the latter is constantly lower than the former.
In fact, data from the document indicated that Nigeria’s average utilised generation during the review period hovered between 3,600MW and 4,118MW, which were, of course, lower than the least available generation capacity of 5,634.47MW recorded between January and August this year.
The available generation capacities in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 were 6,616.28MW, 7,039.96MW, 6,871.26MW and 7,506.23MW respectively.
For 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 (January – August), the available power generation capacities of electricity producers across the country were 7,381.67MW, 7,792.51MW, 6,336.52MW and 5,634.47MW respectively.
On the annual capacity payment loss in the sector, the report indicated that in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, the industry’s losses were N214.93bn, N273.32bn, N236.47bn and N264.08bn, respectively.
In 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 (January – August), the sector’s annual capacity payment losses were N256.97bn, N266.10bn, N159.86bn and N88.13bn, respectively.
The above figures therefore showed that despite the interventions by the Federal Government in the power sector, estimated at over N1.51tn, available generation capacity did not appreciate much, rather it had been decreasing since last year.