Paths to rapid resolution of Nigeria’s electricity problem

The Nigerian population is about 170 million, according to the Nigerian Population Commission (NPC). The United Nations estimates the basic electrical power need per person to be about 250watt. Hence, the power generation capacity to meet the basic power needs of the nation should be about 40,000MW; the Nigerian government has confirmed this much. The […]

The Nigerian population is about 170 million, according to the Nigerian Population Commission (NPC). The United Nations estimates the basic electrical power need per person to be about 250watt. Hence, the power generation capacity to meet the basic power needs of the nation should be about 40,000MW; the Nigerian government has confirmed this much.
The current installed generation capacity is only 5000MW from the privatised GENCOs that are operational; hence a power deficit of 35,000MW.
About 10 more power generation plants are currently at different stages of completion. When completed, they will be connected to the national grid, and the government plans to privatise them too.
 These plants will add another 5000MW to the national grid in the next year or so. However, this may not materialise unless the national grid is overhauled and expanded to take this additional power.
The fund needed to overhaul and expand the national grid is at a minimum of $10 billion, plus a 5 to 10 years timeline to complete it.
This will further mop up the limited fund available to seriously and immediately address the Nigerian power problem.
With the increasing popularity of renewable energy, most of the developed countries are already moving towards distributive power supply. Here, power is generated and used within the local electricity network. This eliminates the need for expensive national grid where power is produced far away and evacuated to be used elsewhere. So, attaining 40,000MW power generation within the four years of the Buhari administration is feasible if the government genuinely adopts the distributive power approach without completely abandoning the existing national grid; hence, the two solution suggestions I plan to make in this write-up.
The national grid solution
The current national grid should be strengthened only to efficiently evacuate the current 5000MW electricity capacity that Nigeria has, to supply power to Lagos, Abuja and Pot Harcourt, plus the cities and towns located in the vicinity of the current power generation plants. The 10 new power generation plants that would soon be completed should be privatised and embedded in the regional distribution network of the region each of them is located in.
The power distribution solution
Before I proceed, some clarifications are necessary. The regional power distribution networks have been sold to DISCOS. The success of this solution, therefore, depends on these DISCOS. If the new government is going to review the sales of those regional distribution networks, it could substantially delay the power distribution solution. My hope is that the new government and the new owners of the DISCOS can quickly find a middle ground that will not disrupt the implementation of this new power solution. The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) already has in place, guidelines for setting up distributive or embedded power plants; and the relationship that should exist between the owner of the embedded power plant and a given DISCO. The new government just needs to make sure that NERC plays by the rule. The government also needs to fully protect embedded power plant owners from the DISCOS when it comes to the billsettlement between these two groups.
Having said these, the rest of the country should be electrified by distributive or embedded power. By this, I mean power is distributed and sold in the locality it is produced or generated. This locality could be a village, a town or part of a big city, a group of nearby villages or towns. The capacity of the plant could be as small as 10 KW.
Private companies, as long as they show some technical competence and demonstrate that they can generate electricity 24 hours a day/7 days a week, and they accept the government regulated tariff range, should be allowed to set up shop in any given locality. The plants could be powered by the sun, wind, coal, natural gas, biogas, biofuel, biomass etc.
Now, this will be an embedded power if there is already an existing electricity distribution network owned by a DISCO. In a town or village where there is no existing power infrastructure, the federal, the state, or the local government will be responsible for the provision of local electricity distribution infrastructures.
Some regulations need to be put in place for private companies that want to generate and sell electricity in these special networks.
Technology choice
We have to adopt technologies that lend themselves to distributive or embedded power generation (10kW to 20MW). And technologies that can be up and running within 3 to 12 months of placing an order.
Now, solar panels and wind turbines may play a role too, but these are intermittent energy sources that require energy storage and other balance of the system that make their upfront investment very expensive. I will use solar panels to illustrate this point. It will cost about $ 8 to install 1W of solar system, including the battery for a 24 hour operation in Nigeria. Thus to install a 1KW solar system, one needs about $8000, whereas 1KW of biomass system will cost about $1200 to install. Thus, adopting solar or wind to resolve our energy problem at this moment will mean a substantial wealth transfer to other countries where we will be buying the equipment.
To reduce the wealth transfer to the barest minimum, the state policy on adoption of solar and wind should ensure that solar panels, batteries and some components of the wind turbines are made in Nigeria.
Fund
To accelerate the resolution of the power problems, funds must be made available to serious and technically competent companies. The federal government should therefore set up a development fund where these new small companies can raise a long-term loan at a low interest rate to set up small power plants throughout Nigeria.
Oladeji is a former university lecturer and a Bell Laboratories scientist