Nigeria in Need of $1 Billion Yearly For Power Generation

August 14, 2011 – Nigeria in Need of $1 Billion Yearly For Power Generation

The chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, Sam Amadi stated during an interview that in order to stabilize and improve the nation’s power grid, Abuja would need to make an annual investment of roughly $10 billion into the power sector in the next decade.

Due to years of neglect and lack of investment in the power sector virtually all the country’s power plants are deficient in capacity and dilapidated, with many requiring complete overhaul.

Amadi remarked, “The challenge is that, can Nigeria get from 4,000 to 40,000 megawatts by 2020? It is doable, but that depends on overcoming so many constraints. It also means that the government is not in the best position to make the huge investment. We have been told by some accounts that you need about $10 billion per annum to get the required capacity.

The government alone cannot make that kind of investment, so it means the private sector has to come in and the independent power producers are going to look at the tariffs and say if I make these billions of investment will I recover my cost?”
Amadi lamented that the country’s per capita energy is very low, “probably the lowest in the world. Lower than they have in Ghana, lower than our neighbour we supply, Benin Republic.” by Daily Times