Page 24 - Apmor 2018

energy accountability

Power Crisis in Nigeria: Technology,

Policy or Citizens? By Michael Dioha

igeria is a vast country with a total Technology transmission system is vandalization of the
population of over 170 million people To provide adequate power to consumers, transmission lines, outdated technologies that
Nand situated in the western part of three important activities must be carried out, deliver poor voltage profiles, poor funding by
Africa with a land mass of 910,771 sq km. generation, transmission and distribution. government, etc.
Owing to the country’s huge population there The distribution network, which is the direct
is a corresponding demand for electricity. Power generation in Nigeria is nothing to link to the consumers, is poor, the voltage
write well about in the sense that sometimes profile is poor and the billing is inaccurate.
no generation is being experienced. The total
Nigeria lags significantly behind installed generating plants capacity of the This is the reason why many Nigerians protest
in access, quality and availability country is about 12,000 MW, while the current their electricity bills because they actually pay
of public electricity supply. This electricity demand in the country is about for what they don’t consume. Most of the
transformers are overloaded, the distribution
threatens the actualization of 40,000 MW. Most of the generation stations lines are obsolete and there is poor motivation
the socio-economic objectives of in the country are over 25 years old, and the of staff at this level in the power sector.
alleviating poverty, employment average daily power generation is below 4,000
MW resulting in severe load shedding.
and wealth creation. Over 60
percent of Nigerians do not have Power generation in the country is faced with Policy
a lot of problems, which include corruption
access to electricity and the ones in the power sector, poor maintenance of
who are connected to the national equipment, inadequate funding, obsolete tools A lot of reforms have taken place
grid usually experience erratic/ and communication facilities, among others. in Nigeria’s power sector in the
epileptic supply of power. The transmission system in Nigeria is very weak last two decades, but it seems that
and is not extended to every part of the country things are getting even worse. Does
One begins to ask, what exactly is wrong with — most especially the rural areas and semi-
Nigeria’s power sector? Is it the technologies urban areas. The transmission system currently it mean that the reforms have no
involved in power generation, government has the capacity to transmit at maximum 6,000 impact in improving the power
policies or do the Nigeria citizens also have MW, and in this way creating imbalance in situation in the country?
their own role to play in ensuring steady power power transmission. The main problem of the
supply in Nigeria?

24 | AFRICAN POWER Mining & Oil Review Vol 21, Issue 20, 2017