Power supply drops to 3,843mw

Nigeria’s power supply has dropped from the 4,131.71 mega watts (mw) it recorded as at August 26 to 3,843.99mw on Monday this week.

The Presidential Taskforce on Power (PTFP), which made this disclosure on Sunday in its power generation report, stated that power generation has also declined from 4,810.70mw to 4,480.80mw.

It disclosed that the country’s peak energy generated also fell from 101,398.20mwh/h to 94.163.24mwh/h.

Acting Chairman, Presidential Task Force on Power, Clement Oke, said that as projected in the PTFP 2014 yearly report, and with the completion of repairs of a major gas pipeline infrastructure and subsidence of vandalism, gas supply has improved.

According to him, the nation attained new energy and power peaks in August 2015, increasing electricity supply compared to previous months. “Averagely, electricity generation is being maintained above the 4,000 megawatt level. This trend should continue, and with the expected completion of North-South transmission loop, the mid 2015 projection of 5,000 megawatts level will be realizable during the fourth quarter of this year provided vandalism does not resume,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has increased its generation target to 6,000MW capacity by the end of December.

NERC held a performance management meeting with generation companies and the TCN to encourage both parties to maintain these results.

According to NERC Chairman, Sam Amadi, the meeting was to assess extant challenges of the generation companies and TCN, in addition to mapping out acceptable performance management mechanisms to sustain their capacities.

Amadi said: “This is a performance management meeting for largely generators. We had previously had the one for distribution companies. When people look at the power sector in terms of performance, they must look at how much we are generating now.

“They won’t bother to find out how much are we transmitting now or what we are distributing.