Light Up Nigeria: facts and stats about electricity in Nigeria

The Light Up Nigeria Twitter feed published a series of compelling tweets this morning. I've pasted them all below, more or less in the order they appeared. Read and absorb the complexity of the mess:

· 1881: year Electricity was first generated in England. 15 yrs before Nigeria

· 1896 The year electricity was first generated in Nigeria. Place was Ijora, in Lagos.

· 60KW - Nigeria's generation capacity in 1896. :)

· Kainji Dam: The oldest, still functional power plant in Nigeria, is about 40 years old.

· 48% - percentage of Nigerians who have NO source of power, 114 years after we first generated power in Nigeria....

· 40%: percentage of the population served by the National grid

· 60%: The average percentage of time when the 40% served by the grid don't have power.

· Kainji Dam: What it was designed produce 760MW, What it is producing now: 400MW. Why? Faulty parts

· 3: Number of Hydro Plants in Nigeria. 1939: Amount of power in MW, they are supposed to generate. 1000: What they generate

· 11: Number of Thermal Plants in NG. 5976: Amount of power in MW, they are supposed to generate. 2589: What they generate

· There are 16 ongoing power generation projects designed to generate 12,500MW for the national grid

· If the projects were completed today, Nigeria would have 20,000MW capacity in generation. BUT....

· BUT... The National transmission grid is only designed to carry 4,800MW. So 75% of that capacity will useless...

· But it also gets WORSE. Some of the electricity generated is "lost" in transmission. (Transmission Loss)

· Transmission losses usually should not exceed 7%. This means that if 100MW is generated, at least 93MW should get to u!

· The Transmission losses on the Nigerian grid is 35%!!!!! So if 100MW is generated only 65MW gets to you!!

· Please find a diagram of the NG transmission system attached. Notice the TX losses?? http://yfrog.com/114n5g

· Transmission losses in Nigeria are the highest in the world. more than 3 times what is normal.

· Even if we generate 2000GW, our grid will only be able to carry 4800 MW and 1,600MW of that will be WASTED

· So why does the Nigerian transmission grid have such a high loss?? Sabotage! Illegal Connections, Poor Equipment

· There were 12 cases of sabotage of the transmission grid in Nigeria in 2008 alone. (TCN)

· N1m. The amount in Naira paid to Ajibode Community as reward 4 assistance in apprehension of two powerline vandals in 08.

· 30 years: The average age of the equipment on the National grid. Older than most of you!!

· To illustrate the capacity issues on the National grid consider the following example:

· River State spends $161m to generate 275MW. Capacity of Grid into Rivers 100MW. 175MW: what RSG paid 4 they don't get

· Rivers State is only getting 40% benefit of their own investment because of grid limitations. :)

· Over 90 transmission projects are ongoing, to add an additional 9,000MW to the capacity of the grid

· Even if all 90 transmission projects are completed, There will still be a shortfall of 10,000MW in capacity. God dey.

· But even if we complete all these projects... the biggest question is HOW WILL THEY BE MAINTAINED?

· For more information on the status of power generation projects: http://bit.ly/cs056D Jan 2010, but still current.

· EFCC survey (published 2010), PHCN ranked least performing & least honest, less than political parties or the police!

· According to the same survey, 82% of the businesses surveyed admit they have bribed PHCN for "better treatment"

· If we are bribing PHCN, will they not be corrupt?

· N7/KWh - How much we buy power in Nigeria. N18/KWh - About how much it costs to generate

· N11/KWh - About how much of your electricity bill Govt. pays for you (subsidy). *shrug*

· How much of our PHCN bills do we really pay? Lets do a small check. :)

· 950m - how much in naira Consumers in the Diobu Business Unit in PH Rivers State alone owed PHCN as at March 2010

· 98bn - Amount in naira owed to PHCN by FGN MDA as at April 2009.

· 70bn - Amount owed in debt to PHCN due to unsettled bills as march 2010 - Minister of State for power.

· So if the customers and the govt. are owing PHCN, how do the staff get paid?

· If you are not getting paid or paid well, are you more likely to collect bribes from saboteurs?

· Now lets talk about gas. Gas is the source of fuel for 40% of all power generated in Nigeria.

· Nigeria produces 4.2bcfd of gas every year. 55% of that is flared (burnt up)

· The amount of gas flared in Nigeria creates about 70 million metric tons of CO2 emissions per year. BIG pollution

· Imagine stacking up $2.5bn in $100 notes and burning them up in a huge inferno? That’s what we do when we flare gas!

· The amount of gas we flare can provide electricity for ALL OF Sub-Saharan Africa

· But that is not all. The amount of gas we flare is equivalent to $2.5 BILLION every year!!

· The state of Florida has 55,460MW generating capacity. About 10 times that of Nigeria

· Texas can generate 104,966MW of electricity - beat that with a stick. :D