Operators of Generation Companies (GenCos) said the electricity market owes them N1.644 trillion as capacity charges for their power plants since 2015 just as it blamed the recent drop in power generation on faulty national grid management.
Speaking on Sunday, the Executive Secretary of the Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC), Dr Joy Ogaji said before the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) took over payment services of generated and distributed electricity in 2015, the Market Operator had paid GenCos for their capacity and generated energy since 2013 when the sector was privatized based on the privatization agreements till 2014 before NBET took over. She said, “Currently, the unpaid available capacity charge which we’re owed by NBET is N1.644.15 trillion.”
Ogaji also noted even the Energy Charge (EC) which is averagely 4,000 megawatts (MW) daily is not paid in full to the GenCos, causing revenue shortfall for them to meet their gas obligations and other expenses.
The breakdown indicates that for every year, about half of the available of the GenCos is not paid for as the national grid could not take the energy to consumers.
The Minister of Power, Engr. Abubakar D. Aliyu recently blamed the low power on technical issues and water level. The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) also stated that some units in about 14 GenCos were either out or have low generation. APGC confirmed the outage of some power plants and some units for maintenance.
“The GenCos are supposed to start and stop at most 20 times a year but in Nigeria, the GenCos start and stop 365 days every year and this wear and tear is affecting the plants which causes maintenance issues at a time when they should be optimal.
“If the grid is operating efficiently the thermal should be operating optimally and nobody should experience power outage,” said Ogaji.
However, on the capacity charge debt, the Head Corporate Communication at NBET, Henrietta Ighomrore, dismissed the N1.6tr figure saying only companies with active Gas Purchase Agreements were paid for unutilized capacity.
