West African nation, Nigeria, granted four off-grid generation licenses in the first quarter of 2025 as part of its efforts to boost electricity supply in the country.
This is contained in the Quarter 1 2025 Report recently published by the country’s electricity regulatory agency, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), as seen by Energy in Africa on Tuesday.
NERC said the off-grid generation plants has a total capacity of 66.49 megawatts (MW).
The four off-grid generation licenses were part of 55 licenses, permits and certifications issued by the NERC in the first quarter of 2025.
Operational performance of Nigeria’s electricity industry
In the first quarter of 2025, NERC also reported that 28 grid-connected power plants were in operation with an average available generation capacity of 5,366.88MW.
This average available generation capacity increased by 69.99MW (+1.32%) from the 5,296.89MW recorded in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Out of 28 grid-connected power plants, 15 of them recorded an increase in available generation capacity compared to the fourth quarter of 2024.
The average hourly generation on the grid in the first quarter of 2025 was 4,770.59MWh/h, which translates to a total generation of 10,304.47GWh.
The NERC attributed this power generation increase to an increase in generation of the power plants.
“The increase in energy generation during the quarter can be attributed to the increase in available generation capacity as well as the increase in energy offtake by the grid-connected customers (including DisCos) compared to 2024/Q4”, NERC said.
Commercial performance of Nigeria’s electricity sector
On the customers’ part, the total energy received by all electricity distribution companies (DisCos) in Q1 of 2025 was 8,169.00 GWh, while the energy billed to end-use customers was only 6,631.92 GWh.
This means the overall billing efficiency of DisCos in the first quarter was 81.18%, representing a 2.48% decrease compared to the 83.66% billing efficiency rate recorded in Q4 of 2024.
Also, the total revenue collected by all DisCos in Q1 was N553.63 billion out of the N744.27 billion billed to customers.
This translates to a collection efficiency of 74.39%, which is a 3.05% decrease from the 77.44% recorded in Q4 of 2024.
