Against the background of Nigeria’s deteriorating electric power situation, energy expert, Professor Bart Nnaji, has outlined a number of measures to immediately arrest the situation.
Delivering the 30th, 31st and 32nd graduation lecture of the Abia State University at Uturu earlier today, Professor Nnaji, a former Minister of Power, outlined the steps as the restoration of the power purchase agreements (PPAs) between electricity firms and the Federal Government which the President Muhammadu Buhari administration suspended; the payment of N6.8trillion owed the power generation firms and the over N200 billion owed distribution companies; and allowing DisCos to charge cost-reflective tariffs.
Others (? include building a national super grid of 765KV and decentralizing its operations so that a fault in one networked plant, for instance, would not cause a national blackout. He also advocated the development of Nigeria’s 210 trillion cubic foot reserve of natural gas – given that 75% of the nation’s electricity is thermal.
Professor Nnaji, also a former Minister of Science and Technology who now leads Geometric Power, operator of the Aba Integrated Power Project (Aba IPP), further advocated that DisCos be encouraged to have embedded generation firms.
He called for greater official attention to DisCos which have been neglected more than other segments of the electricity value chain, and a review of the coverage areas allotted to each distribution firm to make them more agile.
Drawing examples from India, China, Brazil, Egypt, and the United States, Nnaji noted that practically “each industrializing nation adds to her stock of electricity every year”, contrasting it with Nigeria which “has not built a new power plant in the last 12 years except the 451MW Azura-Edo Power Plant in Edo State and the 188MW Geometric Power Plant in Aba, Abia State”.
The former minister argued that people would not invest in new power plants without a financial instrument like the World Bank-backed Partial risk guarantee (PRG) to provide investors comfort.
“This is because it is exceedingly expensive to invest in power generation”, he told the university community.
“It costs about $1.3m to construct one megawatt gas-fired plant, which is the cheapest in the country, as solar, wind, and hydroelectric technologies cost more”.
He added that investors would like to know how they could recoup their heavy and long-term investments, and the PGR is about the only realistic instrument to provide such comfort.
He challenged the notion that investors would like to sign such PRGs with state governments following the implementation of the 2023 Electricity Act that permits subnational entities to regulate power generation, transmission, and distribution in their domains.
Prof Nnaji pointed out that even if the federal authorities reversed the suspension of the PPAs today and work commenced immediately on the construction of a new plant, it would take at least three years to complete it, meaning that Nigeria would be one of the few countries ofthe world that would not expand its quantum of electricity in over 15 years.
He commendef the Federal Government for setting up a 19-man committee headed by the Chief of Staff to the President to, among other things, accelerate the recovery of some stranded 1,600MW within two years.
The Geometric Power chairman estimated that Nigeria needs 100,000MW of electricity to become a higher-medium economy by 2040. In his view, the 30,000MW suggested by the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) by 2030 is unrealistic.
He said an electricity-hungry nation like the United States would do everything possible to increase its electricity supply, including re-embracing coal-fired plants in the face of higher power demand unleashed by generative AI data centres.
He compared it to the return of coal plants by European countries in the wake of the energy crisis occasioned by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, forcing the European Union to impose sanctions on Moscow.
Nnaji lauded the Federal Government for resuming work on the 765KV Super Grid he convinced the Goodluck Jonathan administration to approve in 2012 which was abandoned after he resigned the same year over the manner of the privatization of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
Nnaji said though his firm does not benefit from Federal Government’s subsidy payments to power firms, he “strongly supports the payment so that the power sector won’t collapse”.
He referred to the DisCos in Ibadan, Benin, and Yola as examples of power distributors covering unwieldy geographical areas, calling for a review of their area allocations.
He said, in contrast, Aba Power covers only nine of the 17 local government areas in Abia State which he said enables it to operate with agility.
Among the distinguished guests at the lecture were the Chairman of the Abia State University Governing Council, the Hon Agwu A. Agwu, the ABSU Vice Chancellor, Professor Ndukwe J. Okeudo, and the Special Adviser to Abia State governor on Tertiary Education, Dr Emeka Enyeazu.
