OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — Residential demand is the driving force in energy demand in Nigeria, showing the highest total growth, according to a Fichtner report on TCN’s Expansion Plan.
According to the report, from 2015, total demand had increased by a factor of 5.8GWh, and is expected to rise to 246,147 GWh in 2035 in the base case.
This means an average annual growth rate of 9.2% in the base case as population is expected to increase constantly and the average household consumption is expected to keep rising over time.
Nigeria’s population is currently over 200 million.
In the case of the low scenario, the report said total demand in 2035 is expected to reach 182,621GWh, which means an increase by a factor of 4.3. The average growth rate of this scenario is estimated to be 7.6%.
In the high scenario, total net demand would be 300,276 GWh in 2035 which would represent an increase by factor 7.1 and an average growth rate of 10.3%. This represents 122% of the base case demand.
“The base case average growth rate of the demand is realistic because recent developments in energy demand increase cannot be simply extrapolated, especially in the light of a faster-growing economy in the future. The future energy demand growth rates of all three scenarios defined by Fichtner are well-founded”, it said in the report.
The peak power demand of the electrical power system of Nigeria is during evening time, between 20:00 hours and 23:00 hours according to the document, with minimum power demand recorded in the early morning between 03:00 hours and 05:00 hours.
In addition, the report revealed that the electricity consumption of the southern DisCos is much higher than for the DisCos located in the North because the population in the southern DisCos is much higher and also, most of the industries are located in the South.
As a result, 73% of the electricity is consumed by the Ibaban, Ikeja, Eko, Benin, Abuja and Port Harcourt DisCOS, whereas Kaduna, Enugu, Kano, Jos and Yola DisCos consume only 27%.
