According to the Research and credit rating firm Agusto and Co, about 130millions of Nigerians depends on the self-generated electricity to fill in the shortfall gaps from the national grid.
Over the last 2 years, Nigeria’s electricity generation capacity has been fluctuating at 3,500MW to 4,400MW due to gas supply shortage. Access to electricity is equally low in the country as only 40% of the population has access to electricity, compared to the world’s average of 80%. Alternatively, about 81% of the national population opts for self-generation of electricity through alternative sources to compensate the outages power supply.
Agusto & Co has estimated the turnover of the electricity industry at the excess of US$2.3b, representing approximately 0.5% of Nigeria’s rebased GDP of US$4.9b. According to the World Bank the country’s electricity consumption per capita, is at 149 KWH, rated as the lowest in Africa. As at March 2014, electricity supply from the national grid stood at 4,306MW far below the estimated demand of 12,800MW, which implies that Nigeria is only generating about 34% of the country’s requirements.
The demand for electricity in Nigeria has been upheld by strong economic growth and increasing urbanization, the report stated, showing the yearly economic growth to be between 7% and 13% and urbanization rate of 3.8%. Electricity demand in Nigeria is projected at 15,730MW, 41,133 MW and 88,282MW by 2014, 2015 and 2020 respectively.
According to Agusto report, the power sector reform is expected to foster private investments in order to achieve the electricity generation output target of 20,000MW by 2020 and adds that about 17,441 qualified technicians and engineers are required by the industry to meet the electricity generation projection for year 2020.
