The minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has said that the Nigerian electricity industry is losing an estimated N24 billion monthly due to the importation of fuel such as diesel for alternative sources of energy.
The minister stated this on Monday at the 24th monthly power sector stakeholders’ meeting hosted by the Transmission Company of Nigeria in Abuja.
Fashola, who was represented by the minister of state II for power, works and housing, Mustapha Baba Shehuri said: “Many power consumers use diesel. Diesel importation has been declining over the last two years. Many are reporting that they ran their generators for noticeably few hours. This is progress. However, Nigerians still consume about 300 million litres of diesel every month and most of this is used to power generators.
“About 75 per cent is imported, putting pressure on scarce foreign exchange. Assuming 40 per cent of the consumption is used for power generation at an average of price of N200 per litre, the electricity industry is losing N24bn every month largely to imported energy.
“There is about 2,000MW of electricity generating capacity that is unutilised. Therefore, the challenge of the moment before the industry is how to deliver the unutilised capacity to consumers, who are willing to pay for it and are already paying dearly for alternatives.
“Problems like this require creative solutions and we don’t have any time to waste. The N701.9bn payment reassurance programme is a creative solution that appears to be having the desired effect for stabilising the gas and generation end of the electricity industry.”
Comments