Nigeria’s electricity regulator has put fresh numbers to a familiar problem. In its January 2026 Operational Performance Factsheet, released on 9 February, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission reported a plant availability factor of about 36 per cent, meaning barely a third of the country’s installed generating capacity was actually available to the grid through the month.
The factsheet, one of a monthly series the commission now publishes, lays the gap bare. Against an installed capacity of roughly 13,600 MW, only a few thousand megawatts were available for dispatch, and almost all of the little that was available had to be absorbed by the grid, leaving virtually no operating buffer. The report also flagged grid-frequency breaches, a marker of how thin the margin for stable operation has become.
Publishing the data monthly is itself notable. For years the headline metric in Nigerian power was installed capacity, a number that flatters the system; the factsheets shift attention to what is available and what is delivered, the figures that actually matter to a business deciding whether to depend on the grid. The commission has paired the disclosure with a wider push for transparency across the sector.
On the same measure, availability has stayed close to a third of installed capacity into 2026, underlining that Nigeria’s shortfall is one of usable, deliverable power rather than plant on paper.
Why this matters
Why this matters for power buyers and investors
Regular, public data on grid performance changes how the unreliability is priced. When a regulator states plainly that only about a third of installed capacity is available, a manufacturer weighing grid dependence, or an investor underwriting a project, can put a number on the risk rather than guess at it. That clarity tends to favour supply a business can actually count on.
For Nova Utilities, transparency is an ally. Its captive and embedded plants are built precisely for the gap the factsheets quantify, delivering firm power at the point of use while grid availability sits near a third of nameplate. Better public data does not fix the grid; it makes the case for distributed power harder to dismiss, and easier to finance.