Nigeria's power struggle

Nigeria's Power Struggle

For some time Nigeria has struggled to provide its citizens with a stable power supply, and recent developments have done little to assure the Nigerian people that a reliable and secure energy future is close at hand.

The Nigerian government was set to restructure the Power Holding Co. of Nigeria Plc (PHCN) in order to generate 6000MW of energy by the end of 2009, but this ambitious target has not been met furthering the West African country's power woes. Power generation currently stands at 3700MW - only a little over half of the anticipated 6000 MW target earlier proclaimed by the PHCN.

Charles Okonji of Nigeria's Compass News gave this report, "The National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) said that Nigerians spent up to N769.4 billion annually in fueling generators. Of this amount, N540.9 billion was spent on diesel-powered generators, while N255.5 billion was spent on buying petrol for generators.

Encouraging energy efficient products

"The Council for Renewable Energy in Nigeria (CREN) estimated that power outages had brought about a loss of N126 billion (US$984.38 million) annually by the country, pointing out that poor transmission lines had contributed to this situation, as many transmission lines could not carry the load due to inadequate maintenance and lack of commitment of government," he added.

In October, Alternative Energy Africa reported that the Nigerian government said it could raise the projected national target of 6000MW of electricity generation by December to 18,000MW by partnering with the private sector on initiatives to encourage energy efficient products.

But one has to ask why would foreign investors venture into Nigeria when it already has a very fragile political infrastructure and proper figures on current projects are seldom made public?

But the sorry state of Nigeria's power production could soon get a major boost from Sweden as both countries are set to form a partnership that will generate power from waste.

Setting more realistic targets

The Swedish Ambassador, who spoke in the company of Senior Advisor of African Development, Mrs. Maj-Inger Klingvall, said: "Nigeria and Sweden have excellent relations that is long-standing. We have also seen that trade between the two countries has increased substantially in the last five to six years. Nigeria is actually Sweden's second biggest trading partner in the sub-Saharan Africa."

The collaboration stretches beyond energy with the Swedish government pledging to work alongside the Nigerian government in stepping up anti-human-trafficking efforts.

In order to become more attractive to foreign investors Nigeria's government must be prepared to be more open about the performance of its country in almost all fields, and in reference to its efforts to increase energy security it might want to set itself more realistic targets.

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