WEST AFRICAN FOCUS DELIVERING QUALITY POWER TO NIGERIA IS THE FIRST STEP… By Akinwole Omoboriowo II, Genesis Electricity Global technological advancements are in stark contrast to development in most regions in Africa, particularly sub-Saharan Africa with its reliance on biomass as a primary source of energy. Where modern electricity is distributed, it is either grossly undersupplied, or of such disruptively low quality that it does not stimulate the required levels of industrial and commercial activities needed to improve standards of living and drive economies. I t is in rural communities (home to the majority of the Africans living within the sub-Saharan region) that unsustainable biomass is still used as the primary source of energy. In response to this challenge, various governments are developing and implementing initiatives that will create and sustain effective energy supply, including leveraging regional resources to further enhance efficiency, and attain the desired social and economic outcomes in their respective countries. Some initiatives have been well tested in other parts of the world whilst others are necessarily re-engineered to suit local conditions. In Nigeria, the government has opted to implement multiple layers of initiatives to both stabilise the electricity sub-sector and improve efficiency of electricity production and supply. Recently, the 100 Nigerian government increased efforts to privatise the nation’s electricity sub- sector through the execution of sale agreements with 15 of the successful bidders for the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) successor companies, paving the way for private sector led electricity industry activities in the country. These initiatives are a welcome development in the sector as they firmly demonstrate the commitment of the Federal Government of Nigeria to foster a structure that is thoroughly transparent and investor friendly. Nigeria’s population of over 160 million people has an estimated per capita power consumption of only 84Kw. The restructuring is expected to drive investment in its electric power sub-sector to cascade its power generation capacity from the current level of approximately 8 000MW to over 50 000MW in the next few years. This will, in turn, increase per capita power consumption. In a similar effort, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) enacted a growth stimulating regulation in 2013 – The Embedded Generation Regulation (EGR) – aimed at significantly increasing the level of private participation in the electricity industry of the country. The robust content of the EGR is particularly impressive, and significant as to how the regulation is applied by investors to the economic well being of the country in general. The EGR is defined by NERC as ‘the generation of electricity that is directly connected to and evacuated through a distribution system which is connected to a transmission network operated by a System Operations Licensee’. This means the generation and evacuation of electricity either via the grid or off- grid. The EGR is designed to stimulate independent power production and supply in areas of the country that are not connected to the national electricity grid, or where an independent electricity distribution network operator (IEDNO) may most efficiently provide electricity even if the given location is connected to the national grid. The embedded generation sizes are classified into units of: small (1 – 6MW), large (6 – 20MW) and units greater than 20MW. Investors are at liberty to undertake power generation projects in chosen areas and with varying power plant capacities. Investors seeking to generate above 20MW are advised ESI AFRICA ISSUE 3 2014