By Kenny Oladipo
The promise of stable electricity is fast becoming another mirage like most government’s promises. It’s somewhat disheartening when a nation of immense human and natural resources still can’t get a handle on the appalling power situation after nearly six decades of self governance. This isn’t ‘rocket science’ is arguably the overused word ever, yet solutions elude successive governments after multiple tries. Obviously, constant power supply isn’t an exclusive preserve of certain countries or people. If it’s possible and doable in any part of the world, the presumption is that it should be possible and doable anywhere else. This age-long challenge is a national disgrace and should be addressed as such. No one, not even the government can give an accurate power generation capacity of the country at any given time. Legislative oversight is virtually non existent, Regulatory Bodies almost ineffective and electricity bills keep skyrocketing errant supply notwithstanding. Something’s got to give before meaningful progress can be made.
A cursory look can be taken at the totality of the challenges and opportunities in the power sector. For Nigeria to reach her full industrial potential, the minimum power generation requirement is 25000MW along with the transmission infrastructure to evacuate all the generation capacity. In comparison, South Africa currently generates 51,309MW of electricity with a population of 56.72 million people. A true giant of Africa isn’t supposed to be outmatched by any other country within the continent on any metric. To accelerate the inherent potentials of the country, the power sector is due a full national attention. To meet power generation goal, the Federal Government needs to keep building power plants in strategic locations across the country, and then sell those plants at a profit to private investors upon completion. The façade of full privatization of the sector may give the government a cover from wholly taking responsibility for the electricity situation,. But it will amount to a substantial error in judgment, if only the private sector is saddled with the duty of boosting power generation in the country. As an example, although power sector is liberalized in the US, yet Federal Government still continues to get involved in power generation through a program called Federal Power Program (FPP). Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) an independent, Government-owned corporation operates under this program, and owns both generation and transmission facilities. Other entities like Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), Southwestern Power Administration (SWPA), Southeastern Power Administration (SEPA), and Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) all function under this program. Also a more aggressive enforcement of both the letter and spirit of the contracts signed by DISCOs should be adopted and licenses of non performing entities could be revoked and reassigned to serious investors with requisite financial and technical bona fide.
Incessant system overload and failures appear to have become an art form, where the whole power infrastructure can collapse without warning, plunging the people into avoidable darkness in the process. To resolve this challenge, the bad actors in the system need to be isolated and countermeasures put in place to minimize and ultimately eliminate the effects of these problem areas in the system. There has to be a mechanism in place that can accurately predict lead time to failure for the power systems. Placing sensors at strategic points along the transmission lines to monitor where and when power might go out will definitely improve system reliability. The nagging system collapse issue can be managed while boosting system capacity to meet growing electricity demand, by coopting some novel ideas into the overarching power policies and strategies.
First, create an intermediate or a power buffer zone between the Generation and Transmission points. And then create a redundancy zone between the Transmission and Distribution points. While this concept does not require an outrageous amount of additional investment because the required power system is already in place in the form of High Voltage Substations and Distribution Substations respectively; it however requires a high end planning. The most cost-effective way to build such a system is to link heavy-duty industries nationwide that require large amount of power to operate heavy equipment to take excess power load entering the Transmission line at any given time in a synchronized manner.
Likewise, at the Distribution network, a redundancy zone can be built to take excess capacity and pass through to medium sized industries and the remaining commercial and residential use demand can then be distributed to small businesses and households through DISCOs. This load scheduling and off-take arrangement could assist in minimizing the recurring system collapse issues, and also provide economic benefit as all generated, transmitted and distributed power can be used up in its entirety. Thereby reducing the prospect of power rejection by DISCOs for lack of demand; a situation that can trigger system overload and contribute to system collapse. Although, the country is yet to reach its full power generation potential, a smarter and more equitable use of the current generation capacity will be helpful and can accelerate industrial revolution quicker than projected.
Second, reinventing solution development. Hydro power generation remains one of the cheapest low carbon footprint ways to generate considerable amount of electricity. However, seasonality impacts the generation capacity due to fluctuating water volume and height at different periods in a year. To overcome this challenge, a water re-injection and recharge model can be explored at the hydro power dams country-wide. This is achieved by creating massive reservoirs (or artificial lakes/ponds) downstream that can hold water that is periodically released at dam’s gates to control flow and prevent excessive pressure build up during wet season. In dry season, the water in these reservoirs are then pumped upstream via pipeline to recharge the water volume to maintain constant water level thereby sustaining consistent power generation regardless of the season. California is adopting similar strategy with Hoover Dam, and national planners can test the feasibility and viability of this idea.
Third, alternative energy sources. Homeowners can be encouraged to shift part of their electricity needs to roof top photovoltaic cells (solar panels) to minimize reliance on the DISCOs while making sizable savings in the process. Government can induce market penetration and residential use of roof top solar panels by providing incentives to homeowners. The northern part of the country will benefit extensively from this sort of program due to a more favorable weather condition that’s well suited to solar panels efficiency, and at the same time boosting job creation during installation. Also, most large manufacturing companies generate massive amount of electricity on their own without necessarily relying on the national grid. These companies can be nudged into supplying excess capacity to the neighboring communities for reasonable fee and may receive tax breaks from the government proportionate to cost incurred or absorbed. At least if the refinery can’t deliver on its core mandate of refining crude oil, maybe a section of the facility can be repurposed to supply electricity instead. All across the country underutilized power generation assets abound that can be harnessed and aggregated to augment the GENCOs supplies.
Fourth, apply the critical mass criteria to ministerial or parastatal appointments. Over the years, individuals with limited or zero expertise in the power sector have been appointed as ministers or heads of parastatal to oversee government policies in the sector with mixed result. Going forward, before anyone can be nominated or appointed to head any critical position the individual must have at least an equivalent 15% minimum threshold knowledge or expertise in the same sector. The individual need not be a subject matter expert in that industry but mustn’t be a neophyte either. The 15% knowledge benchmark derives from what’s known as critical mass in nuclear fission; once critical mass is reached, a nuclear reaction can sustain itself. At which point, minimum of 15% fissile material is required to attain chain reaction. Hence, this same test could be applied as the qualifying test for selection and appointment into meaningful positions across board. The days of square pegs in round holes should be over by now. No more winging it as we go. If government can set this baseline threshold as the basis for appointment for all substantive appointments, the positive knock-on effect will be profound, cascading productively down the value chain and output. Undoubtedly, the Power Sector is a specialist sector, and shouldn’t be treated as a bagatelle that any nominal politician can run.
In closing, Ministry of Power ought to be a standalone ministry and not bundled together with Ministry of Works and Housing, and government needs to review that particular merger. Power Sector is a unique sector and cannot be measured, quantified or calibrated in the same way as road networks, bridges or buildings. Electricity is an intangible asset that is transient in value per time and given its criticality to national development, it deserves a ministry of its own for focused attention overseen by industry experts.
Above all, let’s learn as a nation to deploy billions of our collective brain cells to address national challenges first, before throwing billions of dollars at them. Any Government or Organization that shoots first and aims later will more often than not shoot amiss. It’s time for the country to set the right priorities and faithfully pursue them till they are fully achieved.
*Oladipo, writes from Houston, Texas, USA via @kindodey
