About six million households in Nigeria’s commercial capital burn about nine billion litres of fuel to self-generate more than 10 gigawatts of power annually, the state Commissioner for Energy Biodun Ogunleye revealed at a stakeholder roundtable in Lagos Tuesday.
This is aside from the 6.6bn litres of fuel consumed by the 113,642 generators run by offices and small businesses and another 61 million litres of fuel consumed by over 13,704 generators in markets across Lagos, according to the data.
The report from a study by the state government said over 80,000 medium and small businesses in Lagos own 94% of the generators used by offices and commercial locations in Lagos, with 33% of the generators being of the size of 1-5kva.
The figure shows that Lagosians spend upwards of a staggering N15trn annually to run their generator sets at home and the office.
Read also: Nigerians owe N349bn electricity debt in nine months
Ogunleye said the state government intended to crystalize the ramping up of power generation in Lagos, Africa’s 5th largest economy to 6gigaewatt in three years under the new state electricity law.
He said the ambitious targets will be achieved through the creations of strong market institutions, appropriate market tools, perfect value chain capacity and by attracting new investment into the sector.
The commissioner said there would be a strong focus on ring fencing market revenues to ensure that parties live up to their obligations and that there would be 100% metering as well as the enthronement of contract driven markets in Lagos.
He disclosed that the government was working on achieving the required gas allocation for which the appropriate applications have been submitted to the relevant authorities.
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