Power sector reforms in Nigeria: opportunities and challenges

Abstract

Constant power supply is the hallmark of a devel-oped economy. Any nation whose energy need is epileptic in supply, prolongs her development and risks losing potential investors. Nigeria, a country of over 120 million people, has for the past 33 years of establishment of the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) agency empowered with the elec-tricity generation, transmission and distribution, wit-nessed frequent and persistent outages. Presently, the federal government has embarked on power sector reforms with the intention of improving the above unpalatable scenario and in turn reduce the scope of monopoly control of the nation’s power industry. This paper therefore looks at the overall power sector reforms as well as evaluates the opportunities and challenges there from; while advocating introduction of a demand side manage-ment (DSM) program by Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) as a way of reducing energy con-sumption among customers with emphasis on ener-gy conservation, energy efficiency and load man-agement.