Never Expect Power Again

A couple of power cuts this morning, and some items in the papers bring this perennial problem to the foreground again. (I'm not sure how long these links are good for, but these summaries may be enough). Headlines:

• The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Wednesday arrested the Chairman of the National Electricity Regulatory Commission, Dr. Ransome Owan, and six commissioners in the agency over an alleged N5bn fraud. (full article)

• Nigerian businesses spent a whopping $8.2 million (about N1.180 billion) on importation of power generating sets in the first week of January. (full article) There are by one estimation 60 million private generators in the country.
  

• The country's power generation capacity has further dropped from about 3500 megawatts to 2400 megawatts following the recent vandalisation of the major gas supply pipeline to the Egbin power station. (full article)

• The epileptic power supply being experienced at present in the country may further worsen as power generation has dropped. (full article with lots of numbers)

• 21 gas turbines imported for the generation of electricity are lying idle at three of the nation's ports - Onne, Warri and Calabar. (full article)
  

Suppose we're optimistic and figure 4000 MW of electricity actually being generated. With an estimated population of 140 million that works out to be about 28 watts per person. A typical toaster takes about 1000 watts. California has about 40,000 MW of generating capacity today for a population of about 36 million. (You may see todays capacity and usage from Cal ISO here, the capacity can go higher in times of peak load.) So that's an average of about 1,000 watts per person, we can all push down our toasters at the same time!

Of course it's not that simple. The power is not distributed evenly, lots of places get none, ever, I get power, always with just a couple of cuts per day as we switch from grid to generator and back again. Actually I prefer it when we are on the generator (like now), except for the fumes from the exhaust all down the street. Our generator provides better power than the grid, more even voltage and frequency. There have been way more light bulbs exploded and electronics burned out by grid power than from the generator. Woke up last monday morning to find glass all over the kitchen floor, bulb had exploded during the night.

In their inimitable way of poking fun at themselves (and the government) the power company NEPA (Nigerian Electric Power Authority) had been dubbed: Never Expect Power Again. A recent change of name was made to reflect an increased willingness to allow for private power companies, NEPA was renamed to PHCN plc (Power Holding Company of Nigeria plc) immediately dubbed: Problem Has Changed Name please light candle.

Better post this quick before the next outage!