By Ken Afor
The national grid’s power capacity has increased from the 13,000 megawatts (MW) achieved a few years ago to approximately 14,000 MW by the federal government and the Association of Power Generation Companies, APGC.
On the eve of the Association of Energy Correspondents of Nigeria’s 2023 annual international strategic conference last Thursday, Dr. Joy Ogaji, the executive secretary of APGC, said the capacity of electricity generation for the national grid has increased to nearly 14,000MW, according to Punch.
Dr. Ogaji said the 700MW Zungeru hydroelectric plant, which cost $1.3 billion and is located in the Niger state, went online in the second quarter of the year, was what caused the increase.
“The national grid now has an installed power generation capacity of about 14, 000 megawatts, and this was made possible due to the Zungeru plant that came on stream this year,” she said, adding that it was an opportunity for interested investors to partner with the Gencos.
It would be recalled that in February, Mainstream Energy Solution Limited was named as the preferred bidder for the plant concession by the federal government to operate the plant after the company had proposed a fee of $700 million per year for 30 years.
However, the current capacity mentioned by by Dr Ogaji – 14,000MW is far from reality what the grid generates.
Investigation revealed that as of Saturday the grid generated 4,803.60 MW, contrary to the 14,000 MW based on records of the Nigerian Electricity System Operator, as per the outlet.
Furthermore, the capacity level of the grid is far below the 30,000MW capacity needed to power the country.
