As electricity consumers in Nigeria continue to face incessant outages in recent months, the industry regulator orders generating companies to ramp up supply.
According to the order by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), GenCos are urged to attain GenCos gets marching order as electricity consumers face poor supply by July 1.
Sanusi Garba, chairman of NERC, says entire energy sector value chain, comprising Gencos, Distributing companies, and the Transmission Company of Nigeria, have agreed to sign a contract to that effect.
“The entire value chain has committed to signing contracts to meet up with the power needs of electricity consumers”, he said
“GenCos will sign contracts with gas producers to buy gas to produce. We have also involved gas suppliers who are committed to making gas available.
“Under the contract, DisCos are not allowed to buy less than 5000MW, and TCN has also said they have the capacity to transmit at least 5000 megawatts. So this time around, there will not be a flop by any party.”
Despite high electricity tariff amid poor supply and rising inflation, electricity consumers still do not get value for money.
The national grid, which transports electricity from the power stations, has broken down repeatedly in the last six months.
The government-owned Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) manages the national grid.
The consequence of its frequent collapse is nationwide blackout, which continues to hurt consumers and small businesses.
The NERC chairman says vandalism of gas pipelines and attacks on transmission towers account for the incessant collapse of the grid.
As a solution, Garba says the federal government is planning to invest in the national grid through capital expenditure to ensure stability.
