HOW ELECTRICITY GETS TO YOU

In the light of various misconceptions about the electricity or power industry in Nigeria,
especially because of the various challenges bedevilling the generation subsector of the
industry which has led to reduced generation output and of course, inadequate distribution of
power, it has become imperative to put up this article on how electricity gets to customers
across the nation. A good attempt at filling this information gap had been made last year in
my article, NESI (The Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry): Key Players and Their Role.
(Click here to see article) The aim of this write up therefore would be to shift our focus from
the companies and corporate organizations that constitute the industry to the process (value
chain) by which power is delivered to homes, offices and industries. Do not think this is
merely a smart way of rebuking people who feel I deny them light each time they have to
stay for days without power supply but rather think of it as a privilege to once again, discuss
on the distinct roles played by the three subsectors of the industry towards achieving the
common goal of ensuring everyone wherever they live across the Niger-Benue divide, have
electricity supply available to them. I will try to be brief this time I am sure you do not
need a lengthy epistle, do you?
Ok. The business of sending power to consumers whether individual or corporate, begins at
power plants and ends when it is received and made use of at our various homes, offices,
worship centres, hospitals, recreation centres and so on. Electricity cannot be stored in large
quantities and as such, the moment it is generated it must be consumed. In Nigeria there are
numerous power plants which can be categorized based on their ownership (publicly owned
or privately owned) or method of power generation (thermal, hydro or renewable energy
solar and wind farms). Irrespective of the method adopted by each plant in generating power,
we all have a common product of the same quality electricity at 50Hertz frequency. This
common generation frequency ensures that power from all the generating stations can be sent
out to various parts of the country through a common transportation medium. So, that is just
what power plants do they generate electricity no more, no less.
Once electricity has been generated at the various power plants, the burden of transporting it
to various cities and towns lie on The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN). TCN
receives electric power generated from each power plant at a voltage of 330,000 Volts
(330kV) or 132,000V (132kV) and transmits it through a central transmission network known
as the national electricity grid. You must have noticed electricity towers while traveling from

one city to another. Those towers support transmission cables carrying electricity from power
plants to regional and sub-regional transmission stations. Once the transmitted electric power
gets to their destination, they are handed over to the distribution company in charge of that
region or locality. So, in earnest, the national grid connects various generating stations to
transmission stations around the country. You can look at it as loop (though really it is not yet
a loop!). So, TCN acts as the middleman between power plants and electricity distribution
companies. The interface between TCN and them is called substation or switchyard. Thats
where electricity is manipulated for convenience of handling it. The switchyard also allows a
power plant or distribution network to be disconnected from the national grid for the purpose
of equipment maintenance or in the event of an emergency.
The electric power that has been transmitted to a particular location through the national grid
is taken up by the distribution company in charge of that location. It is the duty of each
distribution company to send the power to her various customers through their distribution
networks. So, from the 330kV or 132kV available at TCN substation, the distribution
company steps down the electric power to 33kV, 11kV and 415V which is safe for use at
factories, industries and offices respectively. At our homes, we receive the power at 415V or
220V if we are connected to just a single phase and neutral. Let us leave all that jargon for
now. The point here is that distribution companies are responsible for selling power to various
end user customers.
So, let us go over what we have said so far. Power is generated at a power plant, transmitted
from a power plant to your city by TCN and sent to your home or office by the distribution
company in charge of your area.
If therefore you do not have power in your home, who do you blame power plants, TCN or
your distribution company? This is what I have actually been driving at. I work in a power
station and it does not just make sense to someone out there on the street who sees me go to
work morning, afternoon or night and yet he is not having light in his house. So quickly, he
yells out to me, You people have refused to give us light for days now. So, let us look at the
question again, who is responsible for lack of electricity supply in your home? It would only
make sense to say the distribution company in your area since she is the one responsible for
connecting you to the power grid or disconnecting you from it. But in reality, there are many
reasons why you may not have power supply in your home and in most cases the distribution
companies are not to blame. Think of it this way, power is business right? You pay your

distribution company for it and she pays TCN for it and TCN pays power plants for it. Power
plants in turn pay for fuel (payment for natural gas by thermal plants take up a significant part
of their monthly expenditure) and overhaul maintenance. An average business entity wants to
make money. So, would it make sense that your distribution company would want to deny
you electricity if she has it in excess? Remember power cannot be stored but must be
consumed as it is being generated.
There could be a number of reasons why you may not have power in your home, office or
factory and I would try to enumerate those possible factors. First, in Nigeria electricity is not
enough to go round everyones home at the same time. What do I mean by that? It means that
the demand for electricity in Nigeria is more than the supply. We generate merely an average
of 3,000MW for about 180 million people. That means that an average Nigerian is entitled to
about 17 Watts of electricity no more. But what can that do for you? Can it power your
refrigerator, water heater, electric ovens or pressing irons? In my previous article Electricity:
An Indispensable Agent of Economic Growth, I made mention that the whole of sub-Saharan
Africa consume about the same amount of electricity that only the State of New York in the
United States of America consumes. So, really, access to power supply in Africa is still a
huge challenge and that to a large extent has impeded rapid economic growth. It is because of
this deficit in available power that everyone cannot afford to have electricity supply the same
time. Power System Operators at TCNs National Control Centre and the Distribution System
Operator in charge of your locality do a great deal of work in rationing available power to
ensure all customers have a feel of it. They try to prioritize customers in relation to different
hours of the day, what the customer uses the power for and what would be the estimated
losses both to the customer and the grid if each customer does not have supply at every point
in time. Take for instance, during office hours, say between 8 oclock in the morning and 5
oclock in the evening, it is expected that offices, small and medium scale enterprises as well
as other commercial entities be supplied electricity. Early in the morning when people are
preparing for work and late in the evening when they have returned home, it is expected that
residential houses be supplied electricity. Factories that run their production round the clock,
hospitals, prisons, barracks and other critical locations where security of lives could be at
stake without electric power supply are expected to be connected all the time. But in practice
this schedule is hardly achievable because most power plants cannot generate all the
electricity they should generate either due to limitation in the supply of fuel to fire their units
(in the case of thermal plants) or due to prolonged downtime brought about by failure to

access foreign exchange for purchase of spare parts and payment for maintenance services.
So, when you do not have power supply, it could be your friend in a different location is
using it at that moment.
Another possible reason why you may not have electricity when you need it is if there is a
major fault or equipment breakdown in your distribution network. This would imply that say
a transformer mounted in your street develops a fault, all the houses serviced by that
transformer are likely to experience blackout until it is repaired. Fixing it should not take time
ideally but if the fault is major and would require much expenses or purchase of unavailable
spare parts, your distribution company might experience challenges in fixing it. Remember
that distribution companies make their monies when customers pay light bills and not too
long ago, electricity in Nigeria used to be a charity heavily subsidized by government
since government was the sole generator, transmitter and distributer of power. But that culture
is not sustainable under private settings where profit for shareholders after all necessary
expenses is the only healthy indicator that a business is doing well. Many Nigerians are yet to
grasp this truth and so many distribution companies find it a huge task, getting customers to
pay up their bills. Maybe when all customers have been supplied prepared meters, collection
losses for distribution companies would reduce. So, if there is no power available to you, you
have the right to call your Disco and find out if it is a rationing exercise or network
breakdown somewhere.
Lastly, another reason why you may be experiencing power outage may be that you are
owing electricity bill. It sounds funny though but so many customers experience
disconnections at some point or the other. If that is the case, then, the fault is yours and you
just have to pay up and be reconnected to the network. Sometimes, you may not be owing but
if so many people in your area are owing especially in places where houses do not have
separate or distinct connections and are yet to be supplied prepaid meters, your feeder might
be knocked out of the network till you guys pay up. It is not a very decent action and I hope
your Disco does not do it.
In summary, we can see that even when power stations are operating round the clock, so
many homes and offices may not be getting power supply. It is not to say that the plant has
denied you electricity supply. Power plant operators work tirelessly to ensure that there is
always power in the grid but whether it is enough to go round every home is not theirs to
grant. Let us hope that in the nearest future the situation would improve such that we can

boast of at least eighteen to twenty hours of electricity supply daily in all our cities, towns
and villages. In my next article, I would be looking at the various challenges facing the power
industry in Nigeria and how we can ensure that the right steps are taken to guarantee
universal access to power supply in the nearest possible future.
Thank you for the read!