Power sector loses over N46b as electricity supply deteriorates

With average energy enjoyed by electricity consumers dropping to 4,002 megawatts last month, the nation’s power sector lost a total of N46.01 billion revenue due to constraints which included shortage of gas; grid unreliability and distribution limitations.
 
Indeed, gas supply needed to boost generation dropped to 19,442 million standard cubic feet (mmscf) in April, as against 22,505mmscf recorded in March, as the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) said that four power generation companies (Gencos) have been unable to generate electricity to the national grid for several days, due to gas supply challenges.
 
Data from the Office of Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, indicated that last month, the average volume of electricity generated and distributed daily to Nigerian homes and offices was 4,002 megawatts (MW) per day, while an average of 3,196 MW was constrained from getting to consumers by gas limitations.  

“At present, repairs have been completed and the pipeline is currently being pressurised prior to resumption of gas supply to the affected power stations,” she said. Mbah, further noted that the TCN had diverted about 312MW load from the Benin-Egbin 330kV transmission line, which tripped at 23.14hours on Tuesday, 23rd April, 2019, to Omotosho –Ikeja West and Ayede-Ikeja 330kV transmission lines, due to on-going repair works on the Benin-Egbin 330kV transmission line.
 
“The tripping was caused by a line cut between Ofofu and Okada, however, TCN engineers are making concerted efforts to complete repair work on the transmission line, despite the very difficult terrain at that location.  “Due to the diversion of the load from this line to the two transmission lines equally feeding Lagos axis, load shedding in Lagos axis was minimised to about 280MW at the first instance. However, with the attendant gas supply issues and sudden gas leakage problem, load shedding increased considerably,” she added.
 
 As at yesterday, Egbin generated 408.62MW as against its installed capacity of 1320MW, Kainji; 302.01, Azura-Edo IPP; 293.78MW, while ASCO and AES did not generate anything during the period.