Nigeria Generates Only 3,900 Megawatts Of Electricity-Report

Nigeria now generates about 3,904 megawatts of electricity for its over 200 million population. The ministry of power said the current power generation is a marginal improvement, a statement by the ministry said on Tuesday, April 12, 2022, to bring it to 86,760.88MWH. Power generation stood at 3,904MW as of Tuesday, April 12. 2022 before dropping by 1.96 per cent in comparison to 3,982.8MW recorded on Monday, April 11, 2022, a Nairametritcs report said.

There was a downturn recorded over the last weekend when the power supply in Nigeria crashed by 47.3 per cent to 37,440.1MWh, the lowest since the national grid recovered from collapse in March.There has been an improvement in the last three days after TCN fixed the affected power grids, which caused widespread blackouts in the country last weekend.

Available data show that Nigerians consume an average of 144 kwh per capita every year, whereas a total of 12,000MW of electricity is needed to service its over 200 million population. The minister of power, Aliyu Abubakar said the national grid collapsed because of vandals that disrupted the transmission tower between Akwa Ibom and Cross River states which led to another power outage. The national grid which collapsed twice in one week had crumbled many times this year.

The minister said that while findings into the cause of the frequent grid collapse are ongoing, the process of restoring supply is also underway with some parts of the national grid already powered and supply fixed. The Central Bank of Nigeria has reported that electricity export to neighboring countries generated N29.95 billion ($72 million) revenue in 2021.

This follows the $84.26 million earned in 2020 and $142.3 million in 2019. In the last five years in total, CBN data showed Nigeria earned $543.11 million(over N225bn) from electricity exports to neighboring nations such as Niger, Benin, and Togo Republic Nairametrics reports.