Nigeria’s generation and transmission capacity is 7,000 MW, but the country’s distribution system is lagging behind — at just 5,000MW capacity.
H.E. Babatunde Fashola, Minister of Power, Woks and Housing in Nigeria, said this week that the government plans to improve the distribution capacity before the end of 2018, according to This Day.
“By increasing generation to 7,000MW, increasing transmission to over 7,000MW and increasing distribution from 2,690MW to an average of 4,900MW and 5,000MW, clearly that is progress and that is what we must do more,” Fashola is quoted by This Day.
Azura Power in Edo State just completed the construction of its plant, adding 459MW of power capacity to the grid, and the 240MW Afam plant and 215MW Kaduna plant are also expected to come online soon. The additional capacity will provide little relief, however, until the distribution system is addressed.
Already, an existing capacity of 2,000MW cannot be used in a country that suffers from persistent power struggles, including outages and a lack of access.