Thread by @trinisoftinc

Let's talk about power and how we are shortchanging ourselves.

Today, our generation has dropped again to about 4K MW...why? Gas powered thermal plants contribute about 3.5K MW to our power generation and right now we can't generate over 3K MW because of Gas Constraints.

Since 2018, there has been this back and forth between gas suppliers and Gencos. Gencos said they suppliers are not giving them gas, Suppliers said Gencos are defaulting on their payments and they can't keep giving them gas for free.

punchng.com/gas-constraint…

On march 1, for instance, we could have generated over 8K MW, but we only generated 3.4K MW...with over 5K MW lost to various types of constraints...majorly Gas constraints.

Between 01 Mar and today, Olorunsogo NIPP that's supposed to generate 340 MW has generated almost 0. People that work in that NIPP will be paid march salary, the equipments will be maintained for the month of march...revenue in march so far? 0.

And this is the problem with Gencos alone. Discos have their own can of worms as well. We've been screaming privatisation of the power sector, now it's in private hands and there's not much difference. We are sabotaging ourselves out of 24/7 electricity.

Discos can't make money because people refuse to pay bills, people using prepaid meters will find a way to bypass the meters, when disconnected, people will reconnect themselves at night and disconnect during the night...Discos are losing revenue in the billions per day.

So Discos can't pay the Gencos, because even though they've collected the power from Gencos, it didn't transform to revenue. So they can't pay money they don't have. Gencos can't pay gas suppliers and suppliers won't supply Gas...result? power generation dropping to 3K MW from 8K

According to this chart. Gencos have lost an estimate of 25 billion Naira between the first of March and today. Excuse me, how can any company survive with so much bleeding? Result? We are going back to the days of 2K MW of power.

datastudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/…

Sincerely I don't know what the government can do, the power problem is multi faceted. There are criminal consumers, Discos who have no idea what they are doing, Gencos who can't innovate out of the rut they find themselves and how much can govt. even interfere in a private biz??

We need to rethink this whole privatisation of the power sector...we obviously didn't get it right the first time...and like they say, if at first you don't succeed, try again. The current model is obviously not working.

Should be FG bail out the discos again? Remember GEJ bailed them out before leaving office. But if the FG keeps bailing them out, why not just take over the whole thing.