Nigeria’s Generating Companies (GenCos) continue to generate more electricity than Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and the distribution companies (DisCos) can handle.
According to data released by the country’s Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), the total megawatts consumed in the first two weeks of February 2018 was 34,490.32 megawatts while actual generation by the GenCos for the period under review was 51,674.61 megawatts.
The unutilized load was recorded as 17,184.29 megawatts and GenCos had earlier blamed the transmission company for having poor transmission networks which make their generating machines to have recurring frequency oscillations.
DisCos also blamed this differential on the TCN, saying System Operator (SO), a section of the TCN, was misinterpreting energy readings by miscalculating drop in electricity demand from customers at night as load rejection.
The Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED, in a statement, said DisCos’ stations have the capacity that was higher than the energy allocation from the grid, but that they often received less due to constraints from the transmission network.
The spokesman of the association, Sunday Oduntan, who signed the statement, pointed out that,“what has happened is the inaccurate rendering or misinterpretation by the System Operator (SO) of DisCos’ minimum and maximum load readings.
The SO in its recent allegation of load rejection against DisCos, wrongly projected the load drop/ demand, during off-peak hours (night times) as load rejection,” he said.
Despite the transmission company of Nigeria (TCN) having transmission capabilities of six gigawatts, the power grid still experiences system collapses with the most recent one recorded on the 1st of February, crashing from a high of 4,699.9 megawatts on January 31, to 219MW the next day.
It also experienced six collapses in January, according to Nigeria Electricity System Operator (NESO), an arm of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).
The country’s transmission company blamed collapses on disruptions to gas production as well as constraints to the supply of the commodity.
Also, lack of proper transmission infrastructure adds to the problem of collapses as the existing infrastructure continues to be the weakest link in the electricity value chain, operators said.
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The data by TCN for the period under review showed that Ikeja Electric Distribution Company (IKEDC) came tops as it did not distribute 2,471.61 megawatts out of the allocated 7,602.82 megawatts.
Eko Electric Distribution Company (EKEDC) followed with 2,043 megawatts, despite being allocated 6,353.83 megawatts; Abuja Electric Distribution (AEDC) Company came third with the allocation of 5,656.39 megawatts and an unutilized load of 1,853.5 megawatts.
Others are Ibadan Electric Distribution Company (IBEDC), allocated 6,260 megawatts, but with an unutilized load of 1,743.96 megawatts coming in the fourth position; Enugu Electric Distribution Company (EEDC) was fifth with an allocation of 4,371.99 megawatts and an unutilized load of 1,624.72 megawatts.
The data shows other distribution companies and their unutilized load as follows; Kaduna Electric Distribution Company (KEDC) at 1,514.8 megawatts, Kano Electric Distribution Company (KEDCO), 1,448.96 megawatts, Port Harcourt Electric Distribution Company (PHED) at 1,277.36 megawatts, Jos Electric Distribution Company (JED) at 908.23 megawatts and lastly, Yola Electric Distribution Company (YEDC) with 400.05 megawatts.
As transmission continues to be responsible for many instances of stranded generation, Nigerian energy experts are of the view that in order for stable and reliable power to be attained, the improvement of its operational performance and efficiency remains fundamental.
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