Electricity in Nigeria 2

Do you run a business?

Is your business dependent on electricity?

All about business

As a business owner, depending on electricity procured from the grid is a deliberate plan to terminate the business. Power supply to businesses without a dedicated transformer via the grid can last for about 2 hours maximum during business hours; consequently, businesses in Nigeria run mainly on petrol or diesel generators. Cybercafés, banks, saloons, copy centres, industries, just name them; every business in Nigeria never rely on power from the grid. However, the cost of powering these businesses is enormous and increasing due to the fluctuations in the cost of petrol or diesel.

Rising cost of oil

The volume of fuel most businesses consume in Nigeria is so huge that we will be wondering how we will be able to solve the problem lack of constant electricity in Nigeria. The government seems to be slow in securing investments into the power sector. Currently, Nigeria generates power at the rate of 4GW and if the country is going to make progress industrially and technologically, Nigeria needs to generate power at the rate of 100GW by 2020.

Let us take a look at a cybercafé that runs it business on a 15kVA generator; period of operation is from 0800hrs to 2000hrs, that is 16 hours. To run a 15kVA generator for 16 hours will at least 55 litres of diesel at the cost of ₦150 per litre of diesel. Assuming this cybercafé operates every day except Sundays, this implies that it will operate for 313 days in a year; consequently, the cost of fuel consumed over a year will be about ₦2,575,542.86. Note we are yet to include the cost of the generator and maintenance costs for the generator.

Where do we go next?