The World Energy Council has said Nigeria has not performed well in the global energy equity ranking.
This is according to the WEC’s 2013 Energy Sustainability Index, a global ranking of 129 countries based on their performances on the three aspects of the energy trilemma.
The index ranks countries in terms of their likely ability to provide sustainable energy policies through the three dimensions of the energy trilemma: Energy Security, Energy Equity, and Environmental Sustainability.
Continue after the break.
Energy security, according to WEC, is the effective management of primary energy supply from domestic and external sources, the reliability of energy infrastructure, and the ability of participating energy companies to meet current and future demand.
Energy equity represents the accessibility and affordability of energy supply across the population.
Environmental sustainability, according to WEC, is the achievement of supply and demand-side energy efficiencies and the development of energy supply from renewable and other low-carbon sources.
Other contextual performance considered in the ranking of the country, the WEC said, included political strength, societal strength, and economic strength.
The WEC said though Nigeria rose six places to rank 84, with the most notable change being an improvement in its contextual performance, the country had difficulty balancing the three sides of the energy trilemma.
The country, according to the WEC, has an excellent level of energy security, but struggles with both providing energy equity and mitigating its impact on the environment.
It said, “This year sees a decline in total energy consumption, but an increase in domestic production, thus making the energy exporter’s production to consumption ratio even more favourable and allowing it to add to its strategic oil stocks.
“However, electricity transmission and distribution losses are up, increasing to 18 per cent of the total amount of electricity generated. Energy equity remains by far Nigeria’s weakest energy dimension, with gasoline becoming even more expensive and only less than half of Nigerians having access to modern electricity services.
“To sustain and continue economic growth and be at par with South Africa, Nigeria needs to urgently solve its issues with power generation,” the WEC said.
The global index confirmed that environmental sustainability performance also remains low in Nigeria, but found that some progress was made in lowering the high level of energy intensity and reducing the amount of CO2 emissions from electricity generation.
The WEC said, “Contextual performance overall is weak, with low but improving indicators of political strength, low and slipping indicators of societal strength, and a comparatively higher level of economic strength, which is buoyed by improving macroeconomic stability.”
The WEC said the essence of the Energy Sustainability Index was to assist policymakers and the energy industry with pressing forward sustainable energy systems.
The World Energy Council, in collaboration with global management consulting firm, Oliver Wyman, has published the report, ‘World Energy Trilemma 2013: Time to get real – the case for sustainable energy investment.’
It said, “The 2013 report is the second part of a two-part series of reports, which will inform the WEC’s policy dialogue activities.
“While the 2012 report, ‘World Energy Trilemma: Time to get real – the case for sustainable energy policy,’ captured the voice of the energy industry, the 2013 report highlights the perspectives of public stakeholders.”
It said the findings were based on interviews with more than 50 policymakers, including energy and environment ministers, government officials, regulators, leaders in multilateral development banks, intergovernmental organisations, and experts from more than 25 countries.
A professor of Energy Economics, Department of Economics, University of Ibadan, Prof. Adeola Adenikinju, had in an interview with our correspondent, described as celebration of mediocrity for Nigeria to be generating less than 4,000MW of electricity for a population of more than 150 million people.
Adenikinju, who also doubles as the President, Nigerian Association for Energy Economics, said, “When I was a Special Assistant to the Special Adviser to the President on Energy during the President Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime, I was a member of a group mandated to come up with the power requirement for Nigeria in order to be an industrialised country by 2030. And when we did the analysis, we found that for Nigeria to be an industrialised country by 2030, at least the country would need to generate 120,000MW of electricity.
“The vision was that around 2007, we would have had 10,000MW, now we are still around 4,000.”
Industry experts, however, said privatisation of the generation and distribution companies, coupled with increased investments from private investors, would improve Nigeria’s performance among the comity of nations as far as energy security and equity are concerned.
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