NIGERIA'S electricity generation has dropped to 1,714.89 Megawatts Hour/Hour (MWH/H) as at yesterday, compared with 3,563 generated in December last year, according to the current generation report by the Presidential Taskforce on Power.
The country’s electricity generation was put at between 3,463.40MW 2,500MW as at March.
Also, the total energy sent out as at April 13, stands at 1,667.16
Megawatts Hour/Hour (MWH/H), while peak generation was 3,359.90
Megawatts (MW) and peak demand forecast 12,800.00 MW.
This is far less than the highest peak generated electricity, which was 4,517.6 MW on December 23, 2012.
The current drop in electricity generation may not be unconnected to electricity bottleneck such as the prolongation of Interim Rules Period (IRP).
The Chairman of Presidential Taskforce on Power, Beks Dagogo-Jack, said recently that there was every indication that the IRP designated to terminate on March 1, 2014 or “such other time as the commission may designate” shall not occur on the said date.
According to him, the prolonged Interim Rules Order (IRO) and continued delay in the declaration of Transitional Electricity Market Stage (TEM) could encourage the power Distribution Companies (Discos) to engage in avoidable sharp practices especially those with “favourable” minimum monthly invoice settlement conditions.
He explained that the Discos may be collecting a lot more and yet short-changing the market ...a situation which could seriously threaten service delivery sustenance owing to mounting unpaid upstream liabilities which can cause a serious decline in gas and generation availability in a matter of months, such that sustaining even 3000MW on the grid could become a herculean task under these conditions.
He said that deliverable milestones contained in the very bold and ambitious Nigeria Power Sector Reform Roadmap launched had been achieved except two, which are the declaration by the Minister of Power of the TEM that would kick-start a fully contracted and rules-governed electricity market wherein the sanctity of contracts shall be full to protect market liquidity, and incentivise increased investment and a well incentivised and liberalised domestic gas market expected to be delivered by the pending Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).
Dagogo-Jack hinted that conscious of the risks associated with handing over the companies for privatised company operation without TEM or a substitute, the Presidential Task Force on Power made repeated representations to the Ministry of Power, Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) leading eventually to an acceptance by NERC to develop and institute a set of interim rules to conduct the market in the pre-TEM phase. Such would be done until the declaration of TEM with a commitment that the IRP shall not be in operation for more than three months.
Dagogo-Jack noted that unfortunately the IRO issued by NERC in December 2013 appears to have some significant sources of concern which are capable of impacting very negatively with the sustainability of the market especially as it appears the IRP would stretch much longer than the three months originally committed to by NERC.
He noted that a key implication of the non-declaration of TEM was the necessary suspension of all the industry agreements and contracts between the trading parties. “The main effect of this during the IRP is that the market participants (gas suppliers , Gencos , TCN , Discos , MO , NBET ) have no enforceable and fully risk-allocated contractual basis for extracting performance from one another.”
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