How power sector ‘lost N1.7bn’ on Monday

The power sector, on Monday, lost N1.707 billion as a result of insufficient gas supply, distribution and transmission infrastructure.

This was disclosed in the daily energy report the advisory power team in the office of the vice-president released on Tuesday.

The report said the dominant constraint on Monday was unavailability of gas. The electricity generation companies (GenCos), comprising gas-fired and hydro stations, said they could not generate 3,205.5MW of electricity same day because gas was not available, while 150 megawatts (MW) was recorded as losses due to water management procedures.

The report added that 200.1MW of electricity was not generated due to unavailability of transmission infrastructure during the period.

It said the GenCos released an average of 3,942 MW/hour of electricity into the national grid on Monday.

On Friday, Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna state, said the federal government spent N1.7 trillion on electricity in the last three years, adding that the sector is broken and needs to be fixed.