NIGERIA TO START ELECTRICITY TRADING WITH NEIGHBOURS

Nigeria will begin trading electricity with other West African countries by June this year.

The regulatory body for electricity trade in West Africa, ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERERA) in conjunction with West African Power Pool (WAPP) is hoping to launch the regional electricity market by June. Therefore, there will be synchronization of all the electricity across the sub region.  So from Nigeria to Cote D’Ivoire, will be on the same power frequency.

Under this arrangement, Nigeria will be buying and selling power from other ECOWAS countries like Ghana and Ivory Coast. Currently sells power only to Benin Republic and Niger Republic.

There are various things that are in the regional electricity market and synchronization is just but one of them.

According to Usman Mohammed, WAPP chairman and Managing Director of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), work is already in progress to improve the collection capacities of distribution firms by forming mechanisms that will guarantee payment like this synchronization.

He also said, trading between Nigeria and other countries will create jobs. The vision of the regional market is to provide energy security.

For example, if Nigeria have gas supply problem, it can import energy from Ghana or Burkina Faso. But this will be dependent on which has cheaper source of energy.

The WAPP chairman also added that, they are on a mission to create transmission lines that will last for 100 years, so as to boost trade.