By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria electricity generation hit 18-month high as the power grid peaked at 5,377 megawatts (MW) over the weekend, a feat that was last recorded early in 2019.
This was disclosed by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which noted that such was last recorded on February 7, 2019, when the national power grid reached 5,375MW peak generation, with improved electricity to many places and distribution networks nationwide.
It said the enhanced record occurred at 9.30 pm on Saturday, August 1.
This indicated that the latest records surpassed that of 2019 with about 2.8 MW, the TCN said, adding that, “it was successfully transmitted to distribution load centres nationwide.”
The electricity transmission body said a simulation done in December 2019 showed that transmission networks can evacuate over 8,100 MW of electricity to the distribution networks across the country.
The Generation Companies (GenCos) through the Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC) said they have over 13,000MW installed capacity and 7,600MW presently available capacity to generate power.
While records showed that the Distribution Companies (DisCos) have the capacity to supply 5,500 MW of electricity to the over 10 million registered consumers nationwide, the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED) said the DisCos’ networks can supply over 7,000MW of electricity to consumers if GenCos and TCN provide that power quantum.
This is coming at a time when the number of registered end-users keeps increasing at a rate of about 75,000 new customers per month.
Aduragbemi Omiyale