Foreign customers are owing Nigerian power generating companies (GenCos) over $8.4million.
This is the amount of power consumed in the second quarter of 2025 by Benin Republic, Togo, Niger and Cameroon.
Speaking at the 10th anniversary of Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC) in Abuja, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Mainstream Energy Solutions Limited, Engineer Lamu Audu, said, however, that Niger Republic has been consistent with its payments, but the government may have had an internal problem to cause it to fail to pay.
Meanwhile, in her presentation, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of APGC, Dr. Joy Ogaji, disclosed that the over N4trillion debts owed GenCos are in different categories which include unpaid invoiced amounts, interest payments due on the outstanding invoiced amounts as captured in the power purchase agreement (PPA) and available capacity payments.
Others are deemed capacity payments, servicing of power sector loans, forex shortfall/losses and increased gas cost and machine maintenance cost due to grid inefficiency.
The lack of liquidity, according to her, causes GenCos to face difficulty in servicing their debts and equity in procuring their assets. Their operations and maintenance are affected and new investments are hampered; a good example is the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP), which attracted very little attention due to the hurdles in the sector.
Other difficulties include poor credit rating that is currently hampering GenCos’ ability to obtain loans and procure essential parts;
poor business viability image to investors who would review GenCos’ financial statements to evaluate the financial health of the company.
“Instances abound where GenCos have had to resort to other means other than the electricity market to support the gas and other services just to put power on the national grid,” she said.
To this effect, GenCos said that there is need for synergy in all Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) plans.
“There should be renewed focus on closing the gap between installed and available capacity—transmission/distribution should be the basis for the first line performance evaluation/regulation.
“The gap between installed capacity at the transmission/distribution interface should serve as the target for load/capacity growth for the distribution sector.
“The gap between installed capacity at the generation/transmission interface should serve as the target for load/capacity growth for the transmission sub-sector.
“Use the determined test capacity as benchmark for performance monitoring and tariff development (asset based),” GenCos said.