UNDERSTANDING NIGERIA’S POWER CHALLENGE

Nigeria's struggle with consistent electricity supply stems from deep-seated problems in organization and accountability within the power sector. The common cry of "Up NEPA!", heard whenever power returns after an outage, highlights a national experience with unreliable electricity, even though the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) no longer exists. The journey of electricity from generation to homes is fraught with challenges, making debates over tariffs, privatization, and reforms more complex than they appear. Nigeria boasts an installed power generation capacity of approximately 14,000 megawatts (MW), yet the actual average delivery to consumers hovers around a mere 4,100–5,000 MW. This significant gap contributes to frequent grid collapses, which are widespread blackouts affecting multiple states, often triggered by a single imbalance between supply and demand. The sector is also plagued by Aggregate Technical, Commercial, and Collection (ATC&C) losses. Technical losses occur due to aging infrastructure, while commercial losses arise from issues like energy theft and unmetered customers. Collection losses happen when consumers are billed but fail to pay. The concept of a cost-reflective tariff, which would cover the full expenses of generation, transmission, and distribution, is often at odds with artificially low, subsidized prices. The article also touches upon mini-grids and embedded generation as potential solutions, operating independently or close to consumption points, respectively, to bypass the limitations of the national grid.

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Up NEPA!