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🇳🇬 Nigeria /Energy & Infrastructure

Nigeria Wastes 2,500MW Daily as Unreliable Grid Fails to Evacuate Power

From ThisDay · () English

Translated from English, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Named sources Context piece
  • Nigeria wastes over 2,500 megawatts of generated power daily due to an unreliable national grid that cannot evacuate the electricity.
  • The country's transmission infrastructure is severely lacking, with the grid only able to wheel around 4,500 MW of its 15,500 MW installed capacity.
  • This grid failure leads to significant economic losses, estimated between $26 billion and $29 billion annually, and forces businesses and households to rely on expensive generators.

Nigeria faces a critical electricity crisis, not from a lack of generation, but from a severely underdeveloped transmission grid. The Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC) reports that over 2,500 megawatts of available power is wasted daily because the grid cannot evacuate it.

Nigeria’s stranded power crisis is a transmission failure, not a generation failure.

— Dr. Joy OgajiChief Executive Officer of APGC, explaining the root cause of wasted power.

Dr. Joy Ogaji, CEO of APGC, highlighted that Nigeria's installed capacity exceeds 15,500 MW, yet the grid can only transmit approximately 4,500 MW. This "stranded power" represents a significant failure in transmission infrastructure, which is either absent or broken down. Data from December 2025 shows 2,275.67 MW of generation went unused, the highest in five years.

The country has an installed capacity of over 15,500MW, yet the grid can only wheel around 4,500MW. That gap is where the crisis lives.

— Dr. Joy OgajiHighlighting the vast difference between power generation capacity and transmission capability.

The human and economic costs are immense. Hospitals operate on generators, students study by candlelight, and small businesses struggle with fuel costs. The national grid has collapsed 564 times between 2000 and 2022. Businesses and households spend an estimated $23 billion annually on self-generation, with broader economic losses estimated by the World Bank at $26 billion to $29 billion per year. The African Development Bank notes that outages cost firms 3% of annual sales, forcing 70.7% of businesses to own generators.

A small tailor earning N4,000 a day can spend N3,000 of it on generator fuel. Banks report diesel at 20 to 30 percent of operating expenses. Every megawatt stranded is a business struggling or failing to survive.

— Dr. Joy OgajiIllustrating the severe financial burden on individuals and businesses due to unreliable electricity.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by ThisDay in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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