FG, Siemens to Scale Nigeria’s Power Grid by 2024
In the bid to scale the slow pace of growth in Africa’s largest economy, President Muhammadu Buhari seeks to scale the country’s power grid to achieve reliable, affordable and quality electricity supply necessary for economic growth, industrialization and poverty alleviation.
In other to achieve its aim, the Federal Government has engaged, Siemens a German multinational conglomerate company for a period of six years to deliver 7,000 megawatts of reliable power supply by 2021 and 11,000 megawatts by 2023. The framework of the deal also includes a goal of 25 GW of power generation capacity by 2024.
Nigeria’s government-owned grid is operated by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which has said the country’s challenges include gas constraints, low load demand by DisCos (the country’s 11 power distribution companies), limited transmission line capacity, a large metering gap, electricity theft, and high technical and commercial losses, among others. The government has acknowledged that only about 4 GW of generation is available on average, though the country has about 13 GW of generation capacity.
Analysts have said the country needs as much as 76 GW of power to serve the entire population. Estimates are that as much as 70% of the country’s population of more than 190 million people do not have access to electricity and many homes and businesses currently run on diesel- or gas-fueled generators.
However, better power infrastructure could enable business growth, create jobs, and produce better economic outcomes. The country also is looking to boost its supply of natural gas for gas-fired power plants.