ACADEMIA Letters NIGERIA ELECTRICITY SUPPLY INDUSTRY -NESI: Prospects, Challenges and the way forward STEPHEN ADOLE BENSON 1.0 INTRODUCTION Nigeria is known to be the most populated nation in Africa, as such; it is faces with a growing population in which electricity power cannot match up with demand. It’s estimated that in the year 2030, the electric power demand will be approaching 50Mw. This already is reemphasiz- ing the huge gap in the sector. To this course, the Nigeria government has undergone series of reform over the past few years with the goal of revamping the power generation, transmission and distribution [1]. In the year 2014 the privatization of the power sector was completed giv- ing rise to 11 distribution companies (discos) and 9 generation companies (gencos) increasing the participants in the business of Nigeria electricity supply industry [8]. A. HISTORY OF NESI Nigeria commenced generation of electricity in the year 1896, although the frst utility com- pany then referred to as Nigeria electricity Supply Company was set up in later in 1929. Over the years, the Nigeria electric power authority was established to pilot the generation, trans- mission and distribution of electricity in the year 2000. As a vertically integrated utility company, the NEPA had a total of six (6) generating stations comprising of four (4) thermal and two (2) hydro power plants with total generating capacity of slightly over 6000MW. With the growing population, generation was unable to Academia Letters, August 2021 Corresponding Author: STEPHEN ADOLE BENSON, iamsteveben@gmail.com Citation: Benson, S.A. (2021). NIGERIA ELECTRICITY SUPPLY INDUSTRY -NESI: Prospects, Challenges and the way forward. Academia Letters, Article 3210. 1 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0