First half of the article

•Part II: Why 862 MW of available capacity was not dispatched

IN Part I, we examined the first major gap in Nigeria’s grid-connected electricity system: the difference between 13,625 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity and the roughly 5,174 MW available on average. Of the 28 power stations, eleven were Critical, nine Poor, four Moderate and only four Strong. Today, we continue the investigation using Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) data covering April 2025 to March 2026.

Available capacity versus actual generation

Using our illustration in Part I, a 500 MW station may have only 200 MW capable of operating because of turbine failure, maintenance or inadequate gas, giving an availability factor of 40%. But if only 100 MW of the available 200 MW is dispatched, the dispatch rate is 50 per cent. Average generation is then only 20% of the original 500 MW installed capacity. Installed capacity, available capacity and actual generation are therefore three different things. NERC defines generation load factor—also called the dispatch rate—as the proportion of available capacity actually utilised. Dispatch depends on plant availability, grid offtake and the plant’s competitiveness under economic merit order.

Across the twelve months, my day-weighted calculation shows that Nigeria had about 5,174 MW available on average but generated only about 4,312 MW on average. Roughly 862 MW of available capacity was therefore not dispatched, giving a twelve-month dispatch rate of about 83.3 per cent. Average generation was only about 31.6 per cent of installed capacity. Put differently, for every 100 MW Nigeria had installed, about 38 MW was available and only about 32 MW was actually generated on average. The undispatched gap averaged about 895 MW in Q2 2025, widened sharply to 1,251 MW in Q3, narrowed to about 948 MW in Q4 and fell to roughly 345 MW in Q1 2026. Corresponding dispatch rates were 83.42 per cent, 76.96 per cent, 82.45 per cent and 92.26 per cent.

But Q1’s higher dispatch rate did not mean Nigeria generated more electricity. Available capacity had fallen so sharply that the system was simply using a larger proportion of a smaller pool. Not every available megawatt should necessarily be dispatched. Grid stability, reserves, economic merit order and contractual constraints can legitimately keep some capacity unused. The question is how much of Nigeria’s non-dispatch was prudent system operation—and how much resulted from avoidable constraints.

Why does available capacity go unused?

The Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO) schedules and dispatches generation while maintaining system balance. It cannot simply instruct every available station to run at maximum output: supply and demand must remain continuously balanced. Economic merit order means lower-cost generation should ordinarily be dispatched first, subject to technical and contractual requirements.

But how much available electricity failed to become generation because the downstream system could not—or would not—take it, even while factories, farms and families needed more electricity?

The distribution offtake problem

Under the Partial Activation of Contract regime, each Distribution Company (DisCo) is assigned a Partially Contracted Capacity (PCC)—essentially its contracted allocation of available grid power. NERC requires DisCos to take at least 95 per cent of their available PCC and says that, given Nigeria’s huge unmet demand, they should ordinarily take 100 per cent.

Yet aggregate DisCo offtake performance was 91.78 per cent in Q2 2025, 87.39 per cent in Q3, 92.18 per cent in Q4 and 97.11% in Q1 2026. The twelve-month average was about 92 per cent. In Q3, only Benin and Port Harcourt DisCos met the 95 per cent threshold; Kaduna recorded just 75.23 per cent.

Why would a country with enormous unmet electricity demand fail to take electricity already available to its distributors?

NERC offered three explanations for weak Q3 performance: fragile distribution infrastructure and rainy-season network outages; lower seasonal demand; and, most troubling, DisCos limiting energy allocation to feeders where they suffer high operational losses, irrespective of undispatched capacity available on the grid. That is an extraordinary systems failure. In plain terms, electricity can be available and consumers can want it, yet a DisCo may still limit supply to a feeder because delivering electricity there would expose it to high operational losses.

NERC also says DisCos that fail…

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