The Federal Government of Nigeria has announced plans to spend US$2,7 billion on power grid infrastructure, this is according to pronouncements by the country’s Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Dr. Zainab Ahmed. 

The grid infrastructure spend is aimed to support the rehabilitation and upgrade of Nigeria’s electricity transmission substations and lines, to increase power transmission network and allow distribution companies to improve supply to consumers. Nigeria’s power grid is dilapidated and has been unable to ensure smooth transmission of power, with reports of the grid collapsing twice within 48 hours this week alone.

Some of the projects that Nigeria is implementing to fix its grid include the US$486 million Nigeria Transmission Expansion Project (NTEP) being financed by the African Development Bank Group (AfDB). The project is part of the national Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Programme (TREP). The first phase of the project is earmarked for completion by December 2024.

Africa’s biggest economy is also implementing the US$568 million North Core Interconnection Power Transmission Line, a regional project with West African Power Pool (WAPP) set to complete this year. The project will integrate the power systems of West African countries with the aim to ensure that all fourteen countries in the mainland of ECOWAS are eventually interconnected.

Nigeria privatised its power generation system in 2013 with the aim to improve its electricity situation but problems with grid infrastructure is stifling the country’s electricity supply potential. The country has targets to reach 40, 000 megawatts of electricity generation capacity by 2020 but the total generation capacity remains at 12,000 MW. The country’s energy availability factor is around 50% with 6,000MW of the country’s generation capacity being realised and only about 4,000MW is wheeled to end-users due to transmission and distribution bottlenecks.