Nigeria, Highest Generator importer in Africa – IRENA

Nigeria is the highest importer of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) and diesel generator in Africa according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

The agency disclosed this in a new report developed in partnership with the Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN) and titled ‘Renewable Energy Roadmap: Nigeria‘.

The IRENA report also revealed that Nigeria’s on-grid generation is dominated by natural gas power stations at 86% and large hydropower plants at 14%. However, unavailability of gas, machine breakdowns, seasonal water shortages and limited grid capacity have severely limited the operational performance of these power plants, thus affecting the power supply.

These power shortages have made many households and businesses resort to self-power generation, using diesel and gasoline generator sets as a backup.

IRENA also highlights the fact that 84% of urban households use backup power supply systems such as fossil diesel/ gasoline generators, while 86% of the companies in Nigeria own or share a generator.

While describing Nigeria as the leading importer of power generators in Africa and one of the largest in the world, , the IRENA report states that

“Given the several million captive generators imported into the country, Nigeria leads Africa as the highest importer of generators and is also one of the largest importers worldwide. Nigeria’s erratic power supply systems and the relatively expensive captive generation negatively impact the economy from the residential to the industry sector.

“Owing to the high costs of captive generation, households and small and medium-sized enterprises spend between two and three times more on kerosene, diesel and petrol than they do on electricity from the grid. In industry, government figures suggest that the cost of self-generating power makes Nigerian products approximately one-third more expensive than imports.”

As Nigeria struggles with power supply access, stakeholders in the sector insist that alongside other challenges, lack of financing is a major issue that needs to be tackled to power the country for the benefit of its over 200 million inhabitants.

The IRENA went on to state that
“While the Nigerian power sector continues to struggle, poor financing remains the key bottleneck to lack of progress. The Nigerian power sector will require substantially more investment to achieve a constant power supply. 

“In terms of improving electricity access, around $34.5 billion in total investment will be required to provide electricity access to all households by 2030. The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) suggests that rehabilitation and expansion of the grid will require an annual investment of $1 billion for the next ten years.” 

Source: Nairametrics.

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