Electricity: Nigeria unveils multi-year plan, targets 20,000MW power generation next 3 years

*Adebayo Adelabu, Nigerian Minister for Power, discloses the country’s aspiration also is to have minimum of 30,000 Megawatts (MW) in 2030 for medium term, and 60,000 MW of electricity by 2060, as two new power substations will be established in the next few months

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

Against the backdrop of incessant power outages affecting consumers, businesses and organisations across the West African country, the Nigerian Government has said it is currently working towards generating 20,000 Megawatts (MW) of electricity by 2026, and 60,000 MW by 2060.

ConsumerConnect reports Adebayo Adelabu, Honourable Minister for Power, disclosed this development in Osogbo, Osun State capital, when he visited the National Control Centre of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) Friday, September 22, 2023.

Adebayo Adelabu, Honourable Minister for Power

Adelabu, in his address during the visit, highlighted his Ministry’s short, medium and long-term goals to increase power generation, transmission and distribution in Nigeria.

The Minister, who was accompanied on the visit to Osogbo by some Power Ministry officials and top Management Staff of TCN, stated: “It’s an aspiration for Nigeria to have minimum of 60,000 Megawatts of power by 2060; that is 60 Gigawatts. And 2030 is the medium term objective of achieving 30,000 Megawatts of power.

Current power generation capacity

Nigeria’s average generation recently increased 8.6 percent year-on-year (YoY) to 3,970.33 MW July 2023, from 3,655.64MW recorded in the corresponding period of 2022.

In spite of the sizeable increase in the country’s power generation, transmission and distribution efforts, occasional reports of collapse of the national electricity grid has been the bane of marked improvement in the sector over the past decades.

Adelabu further said: “But like I mentioned in one of the programmes I attended, in as much as we are on course in achieving this, given the experiences of other countries who are even able to achieve over 100,000 megawatts within 40 to 50 years, this is not an ambitious target for Nigeria; we can easily achieve it.”

He also explained that the current administration has “target for transmission capacity.”

Adelabu said: “We have target for distribution capacity, and we have target for power generation capacity.

“By 2026, we should be able to achieve 20,000 megawatts of electricity.”

Plan to establish and activate 2 more power substations

As the part of the grand plan to boost the electricity value chain in the country, the Minister said two more power substations would be established in the next few months, courtesy of the presidential power initiative of the Federal Government.

He, therefore, warned that any employee found sabotaging the efforts of government in the power sector of the economy would be made to face wrath of the law.

Besides, Adelabu stated that a panel had been set up to investigate what caused the recent inferno at the TCN power substation in Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State, North-West Nigeria.

Kindly Share This Story