The power sector should be up for complete change and transformation following a pledged made recently by the European Union to offer €150 million (N33,429,015,750) grants to boost the country’s sector.
This was disclosed by a three-man delegation from the EU during an interactive session with Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Dr. Sam Amadi, and other members of the Commission.
Statement by the Head, Public Affairs Department, NERC, Dr. Usman Abba Arabi quoted the leader of the delegation, Mr. Peter Cameron as saying that they were in the country to assess possible areas the EU could be of assistance in solving the country’s power challenge.
The other members of the delegation are Gerrit Clarke and Daud Carew. Cameron said that the delegation, who has been around the country for some days, spoke with other stakeholders in the sector and was rounding off its consultation with the Commission so that it would be properly guided on possible areas of assistance.
The Commission has, however, requested for the details of the grant for it to study and arrive at a well-informed position on how best the offer could be accessed and optimally utilised.
Briefing the delegation, Amadi appreciated EU’s good gesture and listed “Three major areas of possible intervention as bridging the huge metering gap; transmission bottlenecks; and the need for embedded generation to improve shortage in power supply.”
Embedded generation entails the consumption of power generated from a plant within a distribution network without passing it through the transmission network.
In his analysis of the situation in the power sector, Amadi said, “It is a vicious circle; they (electricity firms) cannot get funds if they cannot deliver quality service and the customer will not be willing to pay without quality service. Without quality service there will be no public acceptability.”
He listed other areas of challenges as gas supply bottlenecks, vandalism of gas pipelines and that some of the decision taken recently by the Commission like removal of collection losses were evidence based and in the best interest of the market.
Carew described the country’s power sector as a big challenge considering the amount of electricity available to the country’s population adding that, “The Commission has been able to do a good job by being very flexible, open and ready to listen.”