Day: March 24, 2017

This comment was treated with comic disbelief by the grandmother, when her 8 year old grandchild told her that they had constant electricity. Grandma in her sixties thought back to better days in the 70’s when electricity supply was constant in Nigeria. She remembered the 80’s where even though it was on everyday, she suffered periodic blackouts. And then came the late 90’s and 2000’s. One was considered lucky when the gods at Nepa graced them with electricity.

She quickly shooed the little child off the phone and asked to speak to her son. Her son reaffirmed that indeed they had power 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Yes his child was being truthful. Her son could not have moved out of Nigeria without telling him. Had he said something and she forgot, maybe she was getting too old. Grandma looked at her phone and it showed her son MTN phone number. As her confusion grew, the son explained that he had invested in solar and he was now enjoying the benefits that people in more organized societies enjoyed.

This conversation had me thinking about my children and their first visit to Nigeria in 1994. They were excited to come home for the first time. They had left a cramped one bedroom apartment in West Paterson, NJ to come to a house in Nigeria. They woke up every morning and the first thing they did was go outside to play. Something they could not do in New Jersey. They had uncles and aunties and household help that fawned over them. My mother even bought a goat that they talked to every day. People were saying that these American children were stupid to talk to a goat. The goat followed them around the compound and seemed to have a relationship going.

Then one day it happened. The lights went out. My boys were so excited when we brought out candles, because it felt as if they were going camping. Can you imagine lighting candles today?

Fast forward to 2016. My youngest came to visit last year and he enjoyed rationed electricity. We had power but we rationed it. We had a small solar power installation with more batteries and not enough panels to charge the batteries. We had lights but could not enjoy the fans at night because we did not put enough charge into our batteries. On his next visit later in 2017 he will have 24/7 refrigeration, day time AC and a fan through the night.

We have been told since my primary schools days that the power situation will be fixed. Every administration has declared a power emergency and yet we are no closer to Nirvana.

In 2014 I installed my first system, a Chinese manufactured 1.5 kw inverter with 200 AH in batteries. The inverter and batteries were junk. Later that year I purchased flooded batteries and a different inverter. I got better results, we could now power the fridge but I was not charging better. I purchased a Flex Max 60 amp charge controller, only to discover that I had junk panels. I imported new panels and my production leaped. We have been doing slow but incremental upgrades ever since. We went from 1 kw in panels to 2 kw. We went from 216 AH in batteries to 432 AH in batteries. I can run my freezer 24/7 now and the fridge during the day. Next phase is an additional 1500 – 2000 watts in panels, an additional charge controller and a small AC. We can take advantage of our day time production to keep the house or office cool.
Solar allows you to increase capacity over time. You start with what your budget can handle and then slowly increase till you get to where you are comfortable. It is important that you buy quality or you will suffer my fate.
You are your own utility company. Make the best of the opportunity.

The writer Mr. Christopher Onwuasoanya is the President of AWPS Renewable Energy, LTD in Lagos. He spends his time between Lagos and NJ where he lives with his wife and three sons. He does not remember the last time he used a generator. He has learnt to manage his power resources to ensure that he has power 24/7 365 days a week.

Darkness tariff!

By Kayode Adeoye | 22 March 2017 | 1:03 pm

Nigeria, a country in the tropical region of the world is now in the dry season. In this dry season, the hydroelectric power plants are working at dry season capacity! The coal-fired power plants are almost redundant while solar is mostly generated by private institutions and personalities who can presently afford it. This leaves the country with gas-powered electricity which has been seriously compromised to the point that what is being generated is barely enough to power an average household in the country for four hours daily.

The Electricity Generating companies, GENCOs and the Electricity Distribution Companies, DISCOs are presently being weighed down by the excruciating pain of foreign exchange scarcity to import basic items necessary to turn around the power sector and those items that are within their reach like pre-paid meters are beyond the reach of average consumer besides the heavy debt burden hanging on their necks. A single phase meter is being issued for N35,000.00 while a three phase meter costs about double that amount.

Yet, these meters are supposed to be provided free of charge to consumers. Instead, consumers are appealed to buy them and get back their investments from the monthly billing! If a consumer buys a single-phase meter for N35,000.00 with a monthly billing from his/her jurisdictional DISCO of N5,000.00, it will take much longer than seven months to clear the payment made while those that purchased the three-phase meter will pay up in about in much longer than fifteen months assuming the monthly billing is the same.
The reason it will take much longer is that the consumer will be billed for electricity used and unused in addition to clearing the overhead on pre-paid meters! Why would a consumer invest so much in the property of another at a time like this? Who is even ready to sign up for that? Why would a daily electricity supply at an average of four hours translate to almost N5,000.00 per month? What exactly is the Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission, NERC doing about this fraudulently avoidable anomaly?

The majority of electricity consumers in the country are domiciled in the rural areas, though heavy consumption is in the urban areas, five day yet some live within the urban areas and are yet without meters! These classes of people are given guesstimates that can be almost twice the billings of metered consumers whose meters are often times unread. This is the misfortune of electricity consumers in Nigeria and unless something is done by concerned authorities about this chronic disease, the heat generated from the gratuitous darkness will eventually consume the DISCOs! From the guesstimates and other billing methods of the DISCOs, it is clear they are better at distributing bills than electricity! Why for instance will providing electricity five-day period within thirty days translate to about N5,000.00? Does that, in any way, mean that if consumers are supplied electricity uninterruptedly for thirty days, the corresponding bill at the rate in question, will thereafter translate to N30,000.00 per month for the average consumer?

Some consumers spend between N5,000.00 and N3,000.00 daily on Automotive Gasoline Oil known as Diesel, some spend between N2,000.00 and N500.00 daily on Premium Motor Spirit known as Petrol and yet others spend between N200.00 and N100.00 daily on Dual Purpose Kerosene averaging N1,800.00 daily or N54,000.00 monthly for the average electricity consumer in an effort to bring some reasonable level of power into their lives and livelihood in a country with all manner of constituted authorities. Some Nigerians are even storing and converting solar energy to power their lives and livelihood at huge cuts to their pockets.

Yet, about 40% of the country