Average Nigerian home gets only seven hours electricity daily – NBS

The average Nigerian household gets less than seven hours (6.6 hours) per day of electricity, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said.

The statistics office disclosed this in its report titled “Nigeria Residential Energy Demand-side Survey Report 2024” published on its website.

The bureau explained that the survey is the maiden edition of the energy demand survey, which is conducted to understand household energy acquisition, usage, and expenditure.

The NBS noted that the survey was conducted across nine states of the federation in collaboration with key stakeholders such as the Federal Ministry of Power (FMP), and Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN).

According to the bureau, the states covered were carefully selected from the country’s six geopolitical zones. They are Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Ekiti, Oyo, Enugu, Kwara, Plateau, Kano, and Sokoto.

Overall, the report said 58.2 per cent of households from the surveyed states are connected to the national electricity grid.

“79.7 per cent in Ekiti state, and 77.3 per cent in Oyo state. About 1 out of every 5 households in Sokoto are connected to the national grid,” it said.

It further explained that households in the southern part of the country are more likely to be connected to the national grid than the northern households.

“Among households connected to the national grid across the nine states covered in this report, 86.6 per cent had electricity supply at one point or the other in the last 30 days on an average of 6.6 hours per day,” the NBS said.

According to the report, disaggregation by state shows that Plateau State had the highest access to grid electricity with 95.7 per cent, closely followed by Sokoto State with

95.1 per cent, and Ekiti state had the lowest with 66.6 per cent.

Electricity billing system

Overall, it said 14.8 per cent of households reported using prepaid billing systems compared to 85.2 per cent who said they used estimated billing systems during the reference period.

Further analysis by states on the estimated billing system reveals that Bauchi State recorded the highest with 97.9 per cent, followed by Sokoto State with 97.3 per cent while Plateau State had the lowest with 69.1 per cent.

On the other hand, it said Plateau State had the highest prepaid billing system with 30.9 per cent, Oyo State had 27.6 per cent, and Bauchi state was the lowest with 2.1 per cent.

Average monthly expenditure on electricity

During the survey’s reference period, the average monthly expenditure of households on electricity was estimated at N4,155.8.

“Disaggregation by state reveals that Enugu State spent the highest on electricity (N7,319.4), followed by Plateau state (N6,153.6) and Bauchi State recorded the lowest (N2,647.7),” it added.

Access to electricity solar system/mini-grid supply

The findings show that 4.8 per cent of households across the surveyed states had access to solar electricity at home.

Among those that had access to solar systems in their homes, 90.9 per cent of households had solar home systems, and 9.1 per cent were connected to solar mini-grids with an average unit of installed capacity of 33.7 KVA (Kilo Volt Amp) and 66.3 kW (Kilowatts).

However, the report said it was observed that overall accessibility to solar electricity supply in the last 30 days prior to the survey was 97.7 per cent on the average of 9 hours per day.

The bureau said 16.5 per cent of households with solar electricity supply reported that they are billed on the average amount of N7,037.

The result also shows that in the last 30 days across the surveyed states, 4.8 per cent of households purchased an average of 7.38 litres of diesel or petrol on average of 763 per litre from either petrol stations (86.7 per cent) or street vendors (13.3 per cent).

“Although, the purchase and usage of diesel or petrol was done within 9 days,” it said.