The Real Cost Of Poor Electricity In Nigeria Is The Economy

i HOPE WE DON'T JUST READ, BUT aLSO uNDERSRTAND AND LEARN AND WORK FOR A BETTER ELECTRIC POWER SITUATION IN OUR COUNTRY.. SO HELP US GOD​

Honestly, the current condition of the power supply is a very painful one. Anyone that lives in Nigeria knows this. it's not just that it's poor, it's more of the fact that it's inconsistent which in some cases, is worse than Unavailable. I don't know if am writing about this presently because there is no electricity in my house now for some days but I guess it's equally a contributing factor to what's going on here now.

Electricity in Modern Nigeria​

Growing up in the rural area, I knew what it was like living without electricity for years. In fact, I think I knew MORE OF what it was living without Electricity than what it was like Living with electricity. However, I was not so bothered by the poor state of the whole electricity situation in Nigeria because I hardly needed it in those days but now, things have changed and everything is now wired directly to electricity or indirectly to it by the Internet. It's a Big big mess of interconnection all drawing power from electricity which is very unstable hence stalling everything else.

However, to begin solving the problem of electricity in our country Nigeria, I think we have to start from the grassroots which happen to be its generation. Yes, I agree that everything in Nigeria is corrupt so the process by which this same electricity is generated in our country is very corrupt on it's own too but is that all? I don't think it is. I think corruption is one thing keeping us back but not all indeed.

What else is keeping us back from Advancing in Electricity in Nigeria? => THE BILLS!​

I was reading some article some time ago and it suggests that Nigerians are always paying more for Private-owned services than they do pay for Government-owned services. Thi is very true.
Do you know that some people spend more money on their DSTV subscription in Nigeria than they pay for Electricity?

It's funny but that's true. DSTV powers just your TV and fun but electricity powers everything else. Yes, DSTV is more steady than NEPA because they will always let you on their services as long as you have paid but has it ever occurred to you that IF YOU HAD PAID MORE TO PHCN, THEY COULD EQUALLY DELIVER SAME OR SIMILAR LEVEL OF SERVICE TO YOU?

Uhm, I guess you never thought about that but it's the Honest truth! If we were to pay more for electricity, am sure they will definitely do more to provide more stable power and all those stuff we don't have now for us. It's a simple equation.. the more you give, the more you get. although, most of it have been corrupted by Corrupt officials in different offices.

Let's Be Logical: Cost of Electricity in Nigeria vs Cost of Electricity in California
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This will explain it to you better, the reason why Nigerians need to pay more money for electricity bills if they must qualify for better electricity!

Cost of electricity in Nigeria at the moment

I am not sure of what the cost is but from the information on InfoguideNigeria the cost is on the average, N9/KWh

Electricity Tariff Structure consumers under the Residential Customer category (R2) class will pay the following: for

Abuja – N24.30
Benin-N24.08
Enugu-N27.13
Ibadan -N23.09
Jos – N26.93
Ikeja – N21.30

Electricity Tariff Structure For single phase and three phases

Kaduna – N27.36, and N28.05
Kano – N20.26 and N26.41;
Ikeja – N21.30 and N21.80;
Port Harcourt – N24.91;
Eko- N24.00 and 25.79;
Yola –N23.25, and N24.75

Meanwhile, for the monthly fixed charge removal (consumers now pay for only what they consume), residential customers within Abuja Electricity Distribution Company will no longer pay N702.00; instead, their charge will increase by N9.60/kWh. While, those in this same category within the Eko and Ikeja Electricity Distribution zones will no longer pay N750.00, but will henceforth pay sums of N10kwh and an N8kwh increase in their energy charges. The usual sum of N800.00 and N750.00 fixed charges has been removed from Kaduna and Benin electricity consumers, while they will get an increase of N11.05kwh and N9.26kwh in their energy charges, respectively.

Let's do some calculations and find out what Nigerians are paying per kilowatt hour in USD so we can compare it with what Folks are paying in California.

Going by the exchange rate of: 380/$
9/380 = $0.023

that's 2.3 Cents
So, the cost of Electricity in Nigeria can be stated as 2.3 Cents per KWH. Let's see what it looks like in California.

Cost of electricity in California at the moment

I did a search:


yeah, I pulled the information directly from Google.
The pay 12 cents while Nigerians pay what? 2.3!

How does it check out?

One other thought provoking fact about Electricity Production, distribution and sales in our country Nigeria

Do you know that the cost of producing electricity in Nigeria is higher than the cost of doing the same in California?

The reason is simple... They use more advanced technology to keep things going but here, that's not the case! We rely on less advanced technology that is both time and energy to consume to produce and distribute power. So, for this reason, we Nigerians are meant to pay more, how come Californians are paying like 4 times as much as we do?

What can be done to Improve the Situation of Electricity in Nigeria

This is what I think. Now that we know that it costs money to generate light and distribute it and we know that the money used in this business is gotten from mainly Government intervention instead of Government and Consumers' aid, I think we already have all that we need to improve the situation of things in our country.

We should do what we should do!
We don't need to pay as much as these guys do. In fact, to get the same results that they do, WE NEED TO PAY MORE as I already explained above that the cost of generating power over there is lower than what we have here.

But how will you feel if these NEPA guys come to your house next month and said something like...

Aha, I think some people will personally climb the electric pole and cut their homes away from the NEPA service or do more crazy things right?

So, it won't work if you tell Nigerians to pay 4 times more.
You cannot make it hidden anyways because it's corruption and we are already tired of being corrupt in this country.

However, I think it should be done this way... PHCN officials should be honest about what's going on, what they want to do and how they want to do it.
So many people will not be happy the moment they hear that price of anything is going up but the educated ones will understand with some explanation just the same way you understand what I have written here and they will be willing to pay especially if they need the light.

These Educated ones will be the ones to explain what's going on to others and help them accept that it's for the better.

That's only one aspect of it. The other one being that...
PHCN on their own part has to make sure that there is a very serious improvement in their power supply BY ALL POSSIBLE MEANS because the general public will be expecting nothing less especially those who have started paying really high.

There will be a problem if those that are paying very high fees are not supplied enough power to compensate for what they are paying for. ELSE They will stop paying and the inflow of Money to PHCN will be halted which will have a deadly impact in the plan being executed.

An idea for PHCN

You guys definitely need Government's effort to make this thing work. It's not that kind of assistance where you write to senate or the Presidency but am talking

BORROW MONEY FROM THE GOVERNMENT. IN THEIR BILLIONS IF YOU CAN BECAUSE THE MARKET IS THERE BUT THERE IS NO PRODUCT AND IF THE PRODUCT IS MADE AVAILABLE, THE BILLIONS WILL FLOW BACK WITH SPEED

Honestly, that's what it is.because that's the only way
I will give an instance of how much people can pay for electricity so you will understand better.

Almost all businesses need Electricity to run these days.
I need them to be online now just as you need it to read this.
Beyond electricity, I need DATA and Excellent network to keep things going over here
But I don't have any of these in Owerri where I school! No light, no Data, No network, however, I have some cash that am willing to give to anyone who gives me any of these things right?
I spent some money on Electricity by purchasing an Electric Generator which consumes Fuel each and everyday but it was not enough because of Data and Network.
I found myself relocating to Port Harcourt where there is better light situation and better access to better network strength.
So far, my monthly spending on Data is near to N15,000 on a 4G LTE network provider and AM NOT BITTER OR COMPLAINING. in fact, am happy because it responds anytime I call on it.
Note: I have no office and it's for personal use.
In the same way, I can spend a lot of money on things I need such as devices, Electricity, and speak of electricity,

Did I forget that I spend the almost same amount of Power Banks to compensate for the same electricity which I haven't seen in a while?

Electricity can Change Nigeria 4 REAL
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I have declared my interest to pay more for Electricity than i pay for food right? And i mean every part of it. Now, let's have a look at what our present power supply condition is doing to us all. It's open but let's be specific.

Nigerians spend more on Generators and Fuel than they spend on Electricity yearly. Lols.
We had a Gen in my house before i bought mine and both costs hundreds of thousands of Naira.
We got to be purchasing fuel each and every day which could cost 1000 or more so monthly, we should be spending 20,000 naira on Fuel if we are serious about electricity but our electric bill monthly is about half that same price! remember, we bought the Generator for hundreds of thousands.
Over here in PH, some people don't sleep without their Generators on. They need the electric fans to keep things cool and so they need electricity. They burn away thousands of Niara in their sleep waking up each morning to the realization that they have wasted yet another serious money.

Why power our Homes individually when we can power it collectively at a cheaper rate?

An average home as we have seen can spend tens of thousands on electricity outside of PHCN bills monthly.
10 homes can spend up to 100k while 100 Homes will be soending roughly 1 Million naira.

That's what i meant by there are Billions in electricity business in Nigeria!
But the truth is.. upon all these spendings, we still don't get enough of electricity in our homes. lols.

They definitely need to stop settling for less when there is so much more waiting out there.
Charge more and Give more... that's the way it should be.

The Jackobian Bitcoin Farm Project - Industries in Nigeria suffering because of the poor state of Electricity Supply in my country, Nigeria

I will keep it very short with links to explain more as my battery reads 23% now!.. speaking of how much i can give anyone who can charge my laptop now.

Some time ago, we learnt about Bitcoins and we also learned that we can mine bitocins and make some money with Bitcoin Mining.
These links will help you understand better:

....

Here's the thread i started for us to discuss Bitcoin mining in Nigeria and how we can start ours: Bitcoins Are Running Away From Nigeria.. With Naira - Help Catch Them!

You can learn about Bitcoins here: Bitcoin-in-1-week Tutorial For Nigerians, Turning Newbies 2 Pro

New to Bitcoin Mining? please click here: What Is Bitcoin Mining? Beginners Guide To The Process

I wanted us, students in this forum to invest in Bitcoin mining by buying our own machines and mining with them but the Bitcoin mining process is a very electricity demanding one which makes Nigeria largely unfit for such.

In other to bring electricity to the level i need it, i spent close to 200,000 naira developing solar power in my home whihc i explained here: Rant - How I Powered My Home With Solar Panels & Inverters Without Nepa
But it was not enough to give me what i wanted because the transportation of the solar panels half-damanged them!

Because of that, i did not suceed in getting power so i could not start a Bitcoin mining industry. Mind you, 1 Btcoin = 470,000 as i write so that's why i don't mind spending huge on power.

Eventually, i could not mine bitcoins on my own so I invested in some Chinese companies to mine bitcoins for me. total investment into the venture is now over 1 Million Naira from calculations which I did here: Genesis-mining Bitcoin Cloud Mining: How I Invested 500k|$1k To Earn 1.5k|$3 Daily 4 Life!

Honestly, calling all these money used to Vex me because that would have been the same amount of money given to local sellers in Nigeria for some other services involved in setting up my own mining farm and making my own bitcoins here in Nigeria!

As I WRITE, I DO NOT KNOW OF ANY BITCOIN MINING FARM IN NIGERIA AND I DON'T THINK THAT ANYONE CAN EVER EXIST BY THE CURRENT LOOK OF THINGS... IT'S TERRIBLE AND IT'S MY COUNTRY SO WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
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it's not just mining my dear. I was just giving you an instance of how I burnt some money into Dollars, devaluing naira in the process to invest in some Chinese company because the opportunity to do the same is not available in my country.

So many other people are pumping some serious Billions of naira out of Nigeria each and every day in investments outside Nigeria because we don not have ELECTRICITY. But we can right? Yes, we can. we can and someone will. I believe.

Will this happen?
Considering we are in Nigeria, it may not but I sincerely believe that if this kind of publication gets into the hands of the right people, it will definitely make an impact and cause him/her to think in another direction and see things a little differently. So, yes, I believe this will happen.

@Chime @Dave Junior I will love to hear what your thoughts are on this.
For now, let's keep buying our Generators, Power banks, fuel and hoping and praying that God hears our prayer and lets PHCN consider an option like this for at least a few years.

Buhari, am on My Knees, WE ARE BEGGING! FORGET ABOUT PUMPING DOLLARS INTO THE ECONOMY, GIVE US LIGHT AND WE WILL DEVELOP INDUSTRIES... I REPEAT, AM BEGGING NOW BECAUSE I THINK AM RUNNING OUT OF OPTIONS!.
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qed

 

Indeed, the fares vary and most times for nothing significant.

TTo be honest, it's more organized in rural areas where all houses pay the same thing than in the cities where they judge you by your house.

Meanwhile, how did you escape the grasp of PHCN as a Nigerian?

 

I made mention of that!
When they charge and don't deliver, Nigerians will hand their damn wires to them.

God save us

 

We need help! @Creamy chick @D-termined @donsilas @Jenero200 @Tutucious

I don't think silence has gotten us to anywhere so far. Please share your opinions and how this thing can be turned around... Let's try that one

 

NEPA, PHCN, EEDC, all of them are the same thing. Imagine, one man was complaining yesterday, that after 2weeks of no light, they brought a bill of 11k for him!

Is awful to have such thing in Nigeria. I'd prefer solar energy to this NEPA stuffs!

 

This only applies to people using manual bills. How about those with pre paid meters? We pay per usage and still no light. Electricity charges can be regulated through pre paid meters. That's how DSTV in Nigeria is... it's pre paid. You pay upfront before usage.

Concerning electricity in Nigeria, there's more than meets the eye.
There's a lot of corruption involved. The generator importers have probably tipped the government. Also, fuel consumption would be on the decrease if there's steady electricity and we all know fuel is the major looting source in Nigeria.

If it's about the billing system, Cotonou and Ghana should be facing the same problem... but no, they all have steady electricity.