Drop in power supply ’caused by sabotage and gas challenges ‘

Frank Edozie, senior special adviser on gas to the minister of power, says the country’s power generation dropped to 3,500 megawatts due to sabotage of pipelines and inadequate gas supply.

Speaking in Lagos on Monday during a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Edozie traced the ongoing epileptic power supply being experienced across the country to the recent vandalism of Transforcados pipeline that transported crude oil.

“Inadequate gas supply and frequent sabotage of the pipelines have contributed immensely to lack of electricity supply in the country,” he said.

“We are constrained due to the gas challenges and it has contributed to the drop of power generation to 3,500 megawatts.”

Edozie disclosed that available power generation capacity currently stood at 6,000 mega watts, while system capacity stood at 5,000 mega watts.

He also said that the real challenge of epileptic power supply was caused by gas inadequacy.

“Presently, power generation as at Monday December 15, stands at 3,500 megawatts; we have not gone below that but we are gradually beefing up the generation to hit 5,000 mega watts as promised.

The ministry of power had indicated on its website that 64.01MW of electricity was stranded on account of the weak and insufficient equipment used in distribution.

The national electricity generation has dropped to 2,954.51 MW in the latest setback for the authorities to meet the expectations of consumers.

The ministry said 3,206.09MW was generated as at December 2, only to drop to 2,954.51 by December 11, which represented a reduction of 251.58MW in nine days.

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), from which the power distribution companies source electricity, has the capacity to transmit 6,000MW.

Peak energy demand forecast for the market is 12,800MW.

The federal government planned to generate 5,000MW in 2014.