By Oluwatosin Maliki
The Association of Power Generation Companies has acted on the directive of the federal government to grow the power capacity of the national grid from 13,000 megawatts to 14,000 MW.
APGC’s Executive Secretary, Dr. Joy Ogaji, said the electricity generation capacity of the national grid has increased to almost 14,000MW.
She disclosed this, while speaking in the 2023 annual international strategic conference last week Thursday.
Furthermore, Dr Ogaji explained that the increase came about as a result of the addition of a $1.3bn Niger state-based 700MW Zungeru hydroelectric plant which came on stream in the second quarter of the year.
Ogaji added that it was an opportunity for interested investors to partner with the Gencos.
“The national grid now has an installed power generation capacity of about 14, 000 megawatts, and this was made possible due to the Zungeru plant that came on stream this year”.
In February, the federal government had announced the Mainstream Energy Solution Limited (company) as the preferred bidder for the concession of the plant. Also, the company had put in an offer of $700m per year for a period of 30 years to operate the plant.
Experts in the field have expressed that Nigeria needs at least 30, 000MW to reach sufficiency.
Although, despite the 14,000MW claim by Ojagi, it was gathered that records of the Nigerian Electricity System Operator indicated that the latest on-grid peak power generation as of Saturday, was still at 4,803.60 MW.