Power Sector Loses N419.3 Billion To Avoidable Constraints

Fashola

By CLEMENT NWOJI, Abuja

The Power Sector have consistently incurred losses due to prevailing constraints in the sector as current statistics showed that since January to October 13, 2018, estimated total of N419,273,000,000 was cumulatively lost to constraints.

Statistics obtained from the Advisory Power Team, presided by the Office of the Vice President, Federal Republic of Nigeria, has revealed.

The catalogue of constraints afflicting the power sector resulting to losses in Nigeria include unavailability of gas, unavailability of transmission infrastructure which ought to be provided by the government, unavailability of distribution infrastructure and improper water management.

OPTIMUM TIMES learnt that these constraints could have been avoided were the various agencies in the power sector value chain alive to its responsibilities.

For instance, in October 13, 2018 alone, while the average energy sent out was 3,784MWh/hour (down by 144.28MWh/h from the previous day), 791.8MW was not generated due to unavailability of gas; 112.5MW was not generated due to unavailability of transmission infrastructure and 2,703.1MW was not generated due to high frequency resulting from unavailability of distribution infrastructure.

Consequently, the power sector lost an estimated N1,732,000,000 on October 13, 2018 due to insufficient gas supply, distribution infrastructure and transmission infrastructure.

According to the records, the dominant constraint on October 13 2018 remained high frequency resulting from unavailability of distribution infrastructure – constraining a total of 2,703.1MW from being available on the grid.

Further statistics showed that the Peak Generation attained on October 13, 2018 was 4,765MW, Peak Average Energy sent out to date – 4,557MWH/H (02 February 2016) and the Peak Generation attained to date was 5,222MW (18 December 2017)