The Nigerian government has revealed that the country will produce 6,000 megawatts of power before the end of this year, although it currently produces between 4,000 and 4,500 MW of electricity annually for a population of roughly 200 million.
In his ministerial speech in Abuja, Minister of Power Adebayo Adelabu highlighted the accomplishments of his ministry since President Bola Tinubu took office on May 29, 2023. Adelabu stated that on May 3, 2024, the nation’s power generation reached 5,000MW for the first time in three years.
Based on the sector’s advancements over the past year, Adelabu pledged that Nigeria would reach 6,000MW of electricity output by year’s end.
“On generation capacity, let me say that 5,000MW of power was achieved in May 2024 for the first time in three years. Precisely on May 3, 2024, we generated, transmitted and distributed 5,003.45MW of power.
“We all know where we were before now. But we rose to the occasion and changed the situation for the better, and our target is to achieve 6,000MW before the end of this year, which will be the first time in the history of Nigeria, and it will happen,” the minister stated.
He mentioned that there have been several infrastructure improvements in the past year and mentioned that one of the programs that made sure Nigeria’s electricity assets were improved was the Presidential Electricity Initiative, which is still in place.
“In November 2023, President Tinubu and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz witnessed the signing of an accelerated performance agreement aimed at expediting the implementation of the Presidential Power Initiative to improve electricity supply in Nigeria.
“The implementation of the pilot phase has resulted in infrastructure improvement which includes additional grid evacuation capacity by 2,230MW and an additional 183MW to be commissioned by the end of June 2024, Adelabu stated.
He stated that Phase 1 contracts for the Presidential Power Initiative were being finalized by the administration.
“There is also the rehabilitation of 15 brownfield substations with an expected contract date of August 2024. There is the construction of 22 green field substations with an expected contract date of October 2024,” he said.
Regarding metering, Adelabu stated that to increase the sector’s liquidity and reduce projected billing, the presidential metering effort was set to supply two million meters annually for the following five years.