The federal government has further shut down two power plants on Sunday leading to a drop in power generation to 3,403 megawatts.
The two affected plants were Olorunsogo II in Ogun State and Trans-Amadi in Rivers State.
The two stations possess installed generation capacity of 625 megawatts and 25 megawatts, respectively.
The recent closure of the affected stations brings the total number of idle plants to nine.
According to industry data, the nation’s total electricity generation stood at 3,402.5MW as of 6am on Sunday, October 9, 2016.
That is a sharp drop from 3,940.5MW on Wednesday, the 5th October.
According to the Transmission Company of Nigeria, the nation achieved its peak power generation of 5,074.70MW on February 2, 2016, about eight months ago.
With the latest development, the nation’s unutilised generation capacity rose to 4120.1MW on Sunday from 3,473.8MW on Wednesday.
Gas constraints are reportedly responsible for about 80 per cent of the stranded capacity at 3,269MW.
Also, generation from the nation’s biggest power station, Egbin in Lagos, dropped to 451MW from 465MW on Wednesday.
Olorunsogo II was built under the National Integrated Power Project scheme.
It did not generate any megawatt of electricity because its units GT1, 2, 3 and 4 and ST2 were out due to gas constraints, and the ST1 out on maintenance.
The plant produced 130.9MW on Wednesday.
Units GT1 and 2 of Trans-Amadi were said to be out on undisclosed reasons, while the GT4 was out due to gas constraints. It generated 15MW of electricity on Wednesday.
Other plants that did not produce electricity on Sunday were Alaoji II with an installed capacity of 250MW; Ihovbor II, 337.5MW; Afam VI, 650MW; Rivers, 160MW; Afam IV & V, AES and ASCO, whose capacities were put at zero.
Other factors were line constraints and high frequency occasioned by rainfall/loss of distribution companies’ feeder.
Line constraints and high frequency led to the shut in of 371.7MW and 479.4MW, respectively on Sunday, up from 368.8MW and 85MW on Wednesday.
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