Nebo: Nigeria Needs 200,000 MW to Guarantee Stable Supply

 

Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo

By Chineme Okafor

Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, has said Nigeria will need to generate about 200,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity to attain the status of a country with robust sufficiency in energy availability.

According to him, the country’s current electricity generation, which is less than 5,000MW, is nothing compared to its energy requirements, adding that ongoing reforms in the power sector are geared to expand capacity in the electricity industry.

Nebo, while playing host to a delegation of British business people, led by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, Roger Grifford, weekend in Abuja, said: “Nigeria needs to generate over 200,000MW; we are still at less than 5,000MW. Within a year, we should be upping this to 10,000MW and it is still a foul cry. So, you can see that the investment potential is enormous in the area of power.”

The delegation was accompanied by the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Dr. Andrew Pocock.
The minister informed the group of the investment opportunities in the country’s electricity industry, noting that the electricity metering component of the market alone had a gap of about three million unmetered consumers, which investors could take advantage of.
Nebo also told the delegation that the ministry was working on a renewable energy policy with which the country could leverage on to develop a robust energy mix in the sector.

“We are trying to build a policy on renewable energy and energy conservation, we want to make it a very robust document of government,” he said, adding that it was not safe for the country to rely on few sources of energy as a matter of national security.
According to him, the proposed renewable energy policy would be deployed majorly in rural areas yet to be connected to the national grid.

 

Read more on ThisDay