By Adedapo Adesanya
The Minister of Power, Mr Adebayo Adelabu, has announced plans to increase the country’s power generation from around 4,000 megawatts to about 6,500 megawatts in the next six months once there is an improvement in gas supply.
He disclosed this while meeting with agency heads and stakeholders in the Nigerian power industry. This meeting is coming amid frustrations regarding the debilitating power supply in the country.
According to him, the current 4,000 megawatts of power generation is not acceptable and there is infrastructure in place to increase it significantly.
“The 4,000 megawatts is not acceptable and we have plans to increase the megawatts to a minimum of 6,000 to 6,500 within the next three to six months.
“What we are looking at is to have an agreement to ramp up to a minimum of 6,000 megawatts within the next three to six months,” the Minister, a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), said.
He noted that Nigeria’s peak generation of 5,700 came more than two years ago.
“I know that the highest we ever generated was 5,700 megawatts about three years ago, that was specifically in November 2021.
“These 5,700 megawatts were also distributed. If we could achieve 5,700 at that time, I believe we still have the infrastructure to generate between 6,000 and 6,500,” he further said.
Speaking on the country’s power problem, Mr Adelabu attributed the low generation to gas supply issues, noting that the power generation companies he had visited could do 6,000 megawatts.
“Once there is gas supply, we want to ramp up generation to a minimum of 6,000 megawatts,” he said.
The Minister promised that the Ministry of Power and its subordinate agencies are working around the clock to rectify the situation swiftly.
He emphasised their commitment to not resting until stable electricity is attained, noting that the convened meeting aimed to tackle the problems within the power sector.
Recently, the Minister threatened to revoke the operational licence of some electricity distribution companies as Nigerians grew tired of the incessant outages and long-term disruption to supply.
