Deregulation Of Power Sector Will Improve Electricity – Prof

Professor Frank Okafor, Power and Control Engineering, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, University of Lagos, said on Thursday that deregulation in the power sector would assist in improving electricity supply in the country.

Okafor said this in Lagos while delivering an inaugural lecturer entitled: “Power System Control and Automation; the Challenge of Reliable Power Supply.”

He noted that deregulating power system required greater considerations than were proposed for other networks in developed economies.

The university lecturer pointed out that the country’s available installed electricity generating capacity was a little more than 4000 mw, adding that with the country’s population at more than 140 million, translated to about 27watts per person.

“This is not enough for the individual to light a lamp, how much more of taking care of industries that a modern urban centre should do whether as an individual or collectively.

“If we consider that only the Nigerian urban population alone estimated at 50 million, including Niger Republic, which is also connected to Nigeria’s grid, have access to all of the 4000 mw capacity, it would be about 80 watts per person, which is better but not much,” he said.

Okafor said that for the country to join the league of world leading countries there was an urgent need to raise the electricity generating and distributing capacity to 500 watts multiplied by 50 million, which amounted to 25,000 mw.

He said that until recently, the Nigerian power system was solely owned by the government, adding that recently, most major projects in the country had been designed to have their own power supply separated from the national grid.

The don said that these projects were within the jurisdiction of the existing power supply, adding that Nigeria needed to have grown the capacity of her power system to accommodate them.

“One can therefore say that the failure of our power system is assumed in the design of these projects and a policy shift is urgently needed,” he said.