NSE president laments poor energy supply despite potentials

President of Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Mr Otis Anyaeji, has asked Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to enforce the commitments entered into by electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) in their share purchase agreement to provide metres to their customers.

He also called for optimum utilisation of existing refineries in addition to facilitating the establishment of additional ones.

Anyaeji, who spoke with the Nigerian Tribune in Abuja, observed that though the country is endowed with huge resources for renewable energy, meeting the enormous energy demand for development had been a challenge.

The challenges include inability of electricity generating companies. Gencos and Discos to invest in the system and increase capacities; inadequate metering of consumers, several transmission bottlenecks; poor quality of services; inability of the gas suppliers to make available gas to the power plants.

He also noted that lack of access and reliable energy supply to rural dwellers had undermined the economic activities in the rural areas, inhibiting establishment of small and medium scale enterprises thereby escalating poverty levels despite high potentials for economic activities that would improve the nation’s food security.

Anyaeli appealed to electricity regulators to improve on power supply for sustainability, effective commercial framework for supply of gas to power plants had to be ensured through formidable “Gas-to-Power Policy for sustainability of fuel supply.

“The Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) should be reviewed.

“Public-Private Partnership project implementation should be adequately monitored to ensure compliance,” he said.

On oil and gas situation, the NSE president noted that energy situation in Nigeria was particularly vulnerable because there was inefficient and inadequate refining capacity in addition to inadequate gas transmission infrastructure.

According to him, energy generation capacity in Nigeria was grossly inadequate at per capita generation rate of approximately 23.6 watts with a municipal solid waste load of about 40,959 tonnes per day, projected to reach 101,307 tonnes per day by 2025 based on 2012 World.