The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has dismissed claims by power generation companies that weaknesses in the national grid are responsible for Nigeria’s persistent electricity shortages, insisting that official industry data show inadequate power generation—not transmission—is the primary cause of the country’s supply deficit.
The transmission company was reacting to a report published by THISDAY on July 28, 2026, in which the Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC) alleged that more than 2,500 megawatts of electricity were being wasted daily because of grid unreliability and argued that Nigeria’s stranded power challenge was a transmission problem.
In a statement issued on Thursday, TCN said the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission’s (NERC) First Quarter 2026 report, covering the same period referenced by the APGC, did not support the generation companies’ assertions.
According to TCN, NERC’s report showed that generating companies declared an average available generation capacity of 4,457.96 megawatts during the first quarter of 2026—almost the same as the 4,500MW the APGC claimed the national grid could evacuate.
The company stressed that the figure reflected electricity made available by generating plants for dispatch rather than a transmission limitation.
TCN also disputed claims that Nigeria has over 15,500MW of installed generation capacity, noting that NERC’s audited report placed the installed capacity of the country’s 28 grid-connected power plants at 13,625MW.
It maintained that its verified transmission wheeling capacity currently stands at 8,700MW following sustained investments in substations, transformers and transmission lines across the country.
To support its position, TCN cited its record transmission of 5,801.84MW on March 4, 2025, as well as several other instances where the national grid wheeled more than 5,500MW.
“A grid said to be limited to 4,500MW could not, as a matter of physics, have carried any of these volumes,” the company stated.
TCN said it had continued to expand the transmission network, commissioning 82 power transformers between January 2024 and November 2025, adding about 8,500MVA of transformation capacity nationwide.
It also highlighted upgrades to critical transmission infrastructure, including the newly commissioned Ihovbor-Benin and Ihovbor-Ajaokuta 330kV transmission lines, which increased evacuation capacity in the Benin corridor by over 600MW while improving power evacuation from the Azura and Ihovbor power plants.
The company argued that NERC’s report identified generation constraints as the electricity sector’s biggest challenge.
It noted that the regulator recorded a Plant Availability Factor of only 32.72 per cent during the first quarter of 2026, indicating that more than two-thirds of the country’s installed generation capacity was unavailable because of gas shortages, equipment failures and maintenance outages.
According to TCN, hydropower generation also declined during the period due to seasonal low water levels and scheduled maintenance at major hydroelectric stations.
The company further observed that the APGC itself acknowledged gas supply to thermal power plants had dropped below 43 per cent of daily requirements, reinforcing NERC’s conclusion that inadequate fuel supply remains a major obstacle to electricity generation.
TCN also rejected claims that between 2,500MW and 4,000MW of electricity was stranded daily because of transmission constraints.
It said NERC’s report showed the national grid achieved a load factor of 92.26 per cent during the review period, meaning only about 345MW—representing 7.74 per cent of available generation—was left undispatched on average.
The company added that five generating plants recorded a 100 per cent load factor, demonstrating that all the electricity they declared available was successfully evacuated through the transmission network.
Responding to allegations that transmission losses ranged between 1,200MW and 1,300MW daily, TCN said NERC’s audited figures put the Transmission Loss Factor at 7.96 per cent, equivalent to an average of about 327MW.
It added that much of the reported ₦2.61 billion underperformance cost related to generation capacity penalties rather than losses on transmission infrastructure.
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On the grid disturbances recorded in January 2026, TCN clarified that while the January 23 system collapse resulted from a busbar separation at the Sapele Transmission Station, NERC’s preliminary investigation attributed the January 27 partial grid collapse to inadequate reactive power support—a system stability issue involving both generation and system operations.
The company also argued that the reported ₦2.28 trillion generation capacity payment shortfall stemmed largely from commercial and market inefficiencies, pointing to NERC’s findings that electricity distribution companies recorded Aggregate Technical, Commercial and Collection losses of 37.44 per cent, alongside remittance shortfalls to the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc and the Market Operator.
While acknowledging that Nigeria’s power sector still requires sustained investment in transmission infrastructure, TCN insisted that available evidence does not support blaming the country’s electricity challenges on the national grid alone.
It urged stakeholders and industry commentators to rely on NERC’s published data, maintaining that the regulator’s findings show Nigeria’s stranded power challenge originates predominantly from inadequate generation rather than transmission bottlenecks.
