Chairman, National Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, Dr. Sam Amadi, has blamed the nation’s deteriorating power supply on the capacity constraints of the generating companies, GENCOs, resulting from under-utilisation of capacity.
About 2,859 megawatts are unutilised due to gas shortage as at December 3.
Amadi, who spoke with Vanguard yesterday made the disclosure following a report by an indigenous opinion research firm working in partnership with The Gallup Poll (USA), NOI Polls, which said that Nigeria’s electricity supply worsened in November.
The report lay credence to the fact that since the handover of generating and distribution companies, DISCOs, to new investors, no value had been added to the assets of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, rather electricity supply has worsened.
Amadi explained that there were capacity constraints with regard to the output of the generating companies, which may have affected the ability of the distribution companies to function optimally.
He also said that contracts for the expansion of the transmission grid would soon be ready.
“There are many such contracts and they have different terminal dates.
“The reinforcement of the transmission is not something I can say will finish today or tomorrow,” Amadi said.
The NOI report, stated that “the power situation has worsened considerably with a 13-point decline in the proportion of Nigerians that experienced improvement from October (39 per cent) to November (26 per cent).
“This represents the lowest power rating in 11 months.”
The report indicated that 49 per cent of those polled said that the power situation had deteriorated, 25 per cent said that there was no improvement whatsoever, while 26 said that there was little improvement.
According to NOI, 53 per cent of the males were of the opinion that power supply had worsened, while 45 per cent of the female said same.
Similarly, out of the number that said the situation had not improved, 36 per cent are men, while 31 per cent are women.
