Powering Up! – A Review of the Out-Going Administration’s Performance and the Road Ahead
Our panelists on the webinar highlighted the wins of the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) in the past eight years post-privatization and recommended ways forward for the new administration. It was noted that one of such improvements in the sector is the increased accountability through developments like the tariff bands which enable customers to healthily challenge DisCos on the quantity and quality of power supply they get. Other noted wins in the sector include the increase in financial interventions from the government and partnerships with agencies such as the World Bank, the more frequent tariff adjustments to try and reconcile end-user tariffs to the cost of power supply and metering schemes aimed at closing the sector’s metering gap.
In addition to these, there has also been the capping of the estimated billing methodology to ensure that customers can hold licensees (DisCos) accountable for the quality of supply they get. Furthermore, the sector has experienced an increase in capacity building in the past eight years, with more young engineers, consultants, project managers, etc., ensuring that the future of the sector in terms of human resources is quite positive.
In the case of renewable energy (RE), although initially slow, the development of RE projects has greatly improved especially in the last three years, with over 60 mini grids in the country, according to the Rural Electrification Agency (REA). Furthermore, the market has opened up to enable individual developers to contribute to the energy access improvement plan.
The panelists also made recommendations for the new administration. Some of which include developing policies to enable local manufacturing, implementing mechanisms to fix DisCos’ balance sheets, reducing the link between exchange rates and tariffs, enabling the NESI to be more market-driven and ultimately develop a fully coordinated strategy to resuscitate the electricity industry through increasing tax incentives, improving local manufacturing, and more.
Watch now to learn more about the past and future of the Nigerian power sector!
