Many don’t understand how the power sector works and that’s quite understandable. All we want is constant power supply and when we don’t get it we simply blame the Discos. Whilst the Discos get their own fair share of the blame a larger reason for poor power supply is with poor gas supply to power generation companies who rely on gas to generate power. After all you can’t distribute what you don’t have. Here is how the DG of BPE explained it from an article culled from The Nation;
He admitted that gas is a problem, noting that it has affected power generation. He said power distribution firms should not be blamed for the problems in the industry.
‘’The distribution companies are not to blame. The generation companies generate electricity and supply to the DISCOs. The GENCOs do not have gas to generate. Once the GENCOs do not have power to generate and no power to give to the DISCOs, the DISCOs would not have anything to distribute. None of the distribution companies generate power. It is the generation companies that generate power,‘’ he added.
Why Gas is a problem and what needs to be done
‘’While the domestic gas price is between $1 and $2, the international market price ranged from $5 to $6. Foreign firms are not ready to invest in gas production in Nigeria because they would not be able to get good returns.
‘’Once there is a cost reflective price for our gas, we would see a lot of investments going into that area. The gas challenges we are facing would be taken care of in long-term, once all the variables that determine the cost of producing gas are taken into consideration. The cost of mining, drilling, production and piping gas should be well considered, ‘’ he said.
https://thenationonlineng.net/new/govt-plans-new-gas-price-for-gencos-others/
