By Obas Esiedesa

After five consecutive days of generating over 4,000 Megawatts, the national grid dropped by 400MW at the weekend to record 3,690.5MW.

Latest data from the National System Operator, a unit at the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, showed that though the performance of the generation companies was marked improvement from what obtained before July 1, it was still far short of Federal Government’s target of 5,505MW at peak generation and a base load of 4,893MW.

The Federal Government had activated a partial Power Purchase Agreement, PPA, with generation companies, GenCos, for the supply of 5,505 Megawatts of electricity for peak generation and a base load of 4,893MW.

The agreement guarantees payment for gas supplied to the GenCos by gas companies and also ensures that the generation companies are paid for power supplied to the national grid.

Checks on generation data from 10-16 July showed grid supply at 3,908.8MW, 4,022.2MW, 4,343.2MW, 4,102.9MW, 4,155.5MW and 4,078.2MW respectively.

Checks on the grid as at 4pm yesterday showed that 23 generation companies were producing 3,877.80MW with Egbin Power topping the chart at 529MW, followed by Delta Power 525MW, Azura-Edo 434MW and Shiroro Hydro 413MW.

Speaking to Vanguard yesterday on the recent improvement in power supply, the National Chairman of Electricity Consumers Association of Nigeria, ECAN, Chijioke James said while the latest government’s effort seems to be having impact, more needs to be done.

Mr. James explained that there were still areas to improve upon like providing meters to consumers and transformers to communities.

He said: “Yes there has been improvement in supply compared to what was happening two, three months ago. But for a country of over 200 million people, 4,000MW or 5,000MW is paltry. We can do more and we expect more.

“The endemic problems are still there like providing meters to consumers and providing basic facilities for communities. The national mass metering programme is stalled; most customers are still without meters.

“We want the government to address these issues and come up with consumer centered policies that would make life easier for Nigerians”, he added.