Over 1,000 megawatts of electricity are currently not allocated to power distribution companies (DisCos) despite low generation by Nigeria’s 23 power plants.

Investigation revealed that the Transmission Company of Nigeria failed to allocate 1,357MW of electricity from a paltry 3, 871MW generated on Sunday.

According to data collected from the Nigerian Electricity System Operator, an arm of TCN, nine DisCos out of 11 were on Sunday allocated a total of 2,514MW, leaving 1,357 unallocated.

A breakdown of the allocation for Sunday showed that Abuja DisCo received a total of 289.92MW; Benin DisCo, 226.89; Eko DisCo, 377.31MW; while 251.89MW was allocated to Enugu DisCo.

While Ibadan DisCos got an allocation of 348.73MW, Ikeja DisCo received the highest load of 478.15MW.

Jos DisCos got the lowest allocation of 138.66MW, Kaduna DisCos received 201.68MW, while Kano DisCos got 201.68MW.

Peak generation for the day was put at 3,871.60 MW.

Nigeria’s power generation has been on a record low of not up to 4,000MW in the last two years.

While generating companies have blamed the situation largely on inability of TCN to transmit quantum of power generated to DisCos, the DisCos have most times dragged TCN for weak transmission lines, low allocation, liquidity gap and others. The TCN, on the other hand, sometimes accuses the DisCos of load rejection.

Although the country’s national grid has a 13,014.14MW capacity, the GenCos generate a meagre 7,652.6MW, while TCN has capacity to wheel 8,100MW.

Experts say Nigeria needs at least 30,000MW electricity for its over 200 million population to reach sufficiency. The national peak forecast is 19,798MW.

Time peak generation ever attained was 5,801.6MW, and that was two years ago.

Findings showed that in March, about 14 gas-powered plants out of 23 connected to the national grid were down as a result of gas constraints, pipeline pigging, fault in generating units, water management, including scheduled and unscheduled maintenance.

With almost nine years of privatisation, the Federal Government said it had spent over N2 trillion on resolving decades of rot in the power.

Punch