The vice President lamented failure by electricity distribution companies in the country whose performance has not been able to deliver available grid power to consumers.
Osibanjo spoke at the inauguration of a 2x60MVA, 132/33kV substation and associated 132kV transmission lines at Abeokuta, Ogun State.
He said, “The distribution capacity in the 11 Discos are significantly low, hovering at around 4,000 megawatts on average with a peak at about 5,400MW. So, despite all the availability of about 8,000MW of generation and 7,000MW of transmission capacity, the lack of Disco infrastructure to absorb and deliver grid power to end-users has largely restricted generation to an average of about 4,000MW, and sometimes even falling below 4,000MW,” the Vice-President said.
The past administration of President Goodluck Jonathan had in November 2013 carved out the distribution and generation companies out of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) and were handed over to private investors.
Osinbajo said, “It is evident that despite all the efforts that have been put into trying to expand the grid…the structure of the market today cannot deliver on the government’s promises to provide power for domestic and industrial use.
“A substantial change of strategy is necessary. There is clearly a need for a change of strategy. What we have done in the past has taken us to a point where there is clearly a change of strategy.”