Nigeria curbs power supply to neighbouring countries

The Nigerian government has directed the grid operator to prioritize domestic power supply and limit electricity exports to neighbouring countries.

Nigeria’s grid operator can only send not more than 6% of their energy abroad, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) said Friday.

While Nigeria faces some of the worst power shortages in the world, with millions of homes without power, the country has contracts to deliver energy to neighbouring Togo, Benin and Niger.

The NERC said the grid operator has caused significant hardship for Nigerians because it has prioritised export to international customers over domestic supply.

Togo, for instance, gets most of its electricity supply from Nigeria and Ghana. The country’s available electricity energy is 1,162GWh of which 744GWh are imported. The remaining energy access is generated domestically from fossil fuels and hydropower.

Even so, neighbouring countries sometimes owe for the electricity supplied. In 2022, the regulator NERC said Togo, Benin and Niger failed to pay $18.29 million for electricity consumed.

New Limits on Exports:

NERC said for the next six months, a maximum of 6% of the total available grid generation can be allocated to international customers.

Analysts said the cap will likely reduce revenue from overseas customers and will require power distribution firms, many of which already owe sizeable debts to power generation companies, to step up paying back their debts.

Electricity supply from the national grid had hovered below 3,000 megawatts for several weeks but has risen above 4,700 megawatts since Saturday after the directive, grid service data showed. Usually, local customers get less than 4000MW on normal days.

Last month, NERC raised tariffs by 230% for Band A customers who are supposed to get more supply but the power companies have been unable to meet the contracted 20 hours. Ikeja Electric announced a rate cut for Band A customers on Monday.