Federal government has announced plans to increase Nigeria’s power generation from 4000 megawatts to 6500 megawatts in the next six months, making an increment of 2500 megawatts.
The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu disclosed this while meeting with Agency heads and stakeholders in the power industry in Abuja on Monday, March 11.
Nigeria has struggled with poor power supply for decades, a challenge that is estimated to cost businesses about $29 billion yearly, according to the World Bank.
The country has the lowest access to electricity globally, with about 92 million persons out of the country’s 200 million population lacking access to power, according to the Energy Progress Report 2022 released by Tracking SDG 7.
While speaking, Adelabu noted that the current 4000 megawatts of power generation was abysmally poor, adding that adequate infrastructure had been put in place to increase the production.
He attributed the low power generation to gas supply issues, noting that from the power generation companies, saying “Once there is gas supply, we want to ramp up generation to a minimum of 6,000 megawatts.
The Minister said; “4000 megawatts is not acceptable and we have plans to increase the megawatts to a minimum of 6000 to 6500 within the next three to six months.”
“What we are looking at is to have an agreement to ramp up to a minimum of 6000 megawatts within the next three to six months.”
“I know that the highest we ever generated was 5,700 megawatts about three years ago, that was specifically in Nov. 2021.”
“And these 5700 megawatts were also distributed. If we could achieve 5,700 at that time, I believe we still have the infrastructure to generate between 6,000 and 6,500.”
