Chinedu Eze
The two main service suppliers within the aviation trade, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) spend over N34 billion on energy from grid electrical energy yearly.
Recent overview from the Ministry of Aviation indicated that that is along with different sources of energy, from energy mills to renewable vitality.
Two years in the past, the ministry stated Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) alone, consumes N1 billion value of electrical energy month-to-month and further excessive prices had been incurred throughout different main journey hubs, with vitality payments for Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja additionally surpassing N1 billion yearly.
To scale back the fee, FAAN has been working to restructure its aviation grasp plan to actively transition main worldwide airports to photo voltaic vitality.
The company has additionally suffered closely from working high-capacity diesel mills in a single day throughout non-peak hours, when no lively flights are scheduled, at a really big price. In reality, studies confirmed that current capital investments by FAAN on different energy embody a N8.73 billion allocation explicitly devoted to modernizing airport energy infrastructure to optimise grid utilisation and systematically eradicate reliance on diesel gas.
In the identical vein, NAMA spends over N10 billion yearly on energy. Until lately it was utilizing mills to energy off grid set up positioned in numerous components of the nation. These installations present security vital providers within the airspace; so, the facility supply that sustains the operations can’t be compromised.
To finish the hiccups in energy provide from the grid, NAMA has steadily invested a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of naira into transitioning a number of of its major air site visitors management and navigational assist stations (together with Lagos, Abuja, Kano, and Port Harcourt) to solar energy techniques.
These challenges carry to the fore the summit on energy, titled, ‘Energy Costs and Business Survival’, organized by the Lagos Country Club final week within the third version of its Business Forum.
The main discourse on the summit was how Nigeria may present dependable and secure electrical energy to carry down the massive sources organisations like FAAN and NAMA, huge manufacturing firms, medium and small scale enterprises spend on electrical energy, which amplify the price of merchandise and providers they supply.
Energy consultants embody Professor Barth Nnaji, former Minister of Power and Chairman/Chief Executive, Geometric Power; the Senior Energy Executive and Managing Partner, JDR Energy Limited, Ifeoma Ukabiala; the Executive Director JMG Limited and former President, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Otunba Francis Meshioye and others, x-rayed the challenges enterprise organisations face in Nigeria by way of provision of energy and its excessive prices.
Meshioye in his opening remarks noticed that companies may create jobs, help households, stimulate native manufacturing, generate authorities income, and drive nationwide financial improvement.
He famous that when unsustainable vitality prices put companies underneath strain, “we should turn the challenge from a threat to their survival, into an opportunity to rethink how Nigeria produces, consumes, and pays for energy.”
He stated that Nigeria may get out of the current energy conundrum by making knowledgeable choices, embracing innovation, deploying effectivity, methodologies, adopting cleaner manufacturing applied sciences and fostering collaboration
The particular visitor of honour, Ifeoma Ukabiala, in her speech, painted a grim image of what companies undergo in Nigeria resulting from insufficient provide of electrical energy and how the price of energy eat into the profitability of companies.
“The details are sobering. This January (2026), the nationwide grid collapsed twice in 5 days, on the twenty third and the twenty seventh, barely a month after one other collapse in December. On a typical day, the grid carries 4 to 5 thousand megawatts, in opposition to greater than twelve thousand megawatts of put in capability.
“Our producers spent about N1.35 trillion on different energy in 2025, up 23 per cent in a single yr. Our Chairman, Otunba Francis Meshioye, is aware of this burden higher than anybody from his years main the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria. And the affiliation tells us that round 35 per cent of manufacturing price now goes to vitality. Across the entire economic system, the World Bank has estimated that Nigerian companies lose about $29 billion yearly to unreliable electrical energy.
“Who feels it? Manufacturers, whose mills run the manufacturing traces. Small companies, who inform us they spend over 40 per cent of their revenue on different vitality. Hotels, hospitals, chilly rooms and golf equipment like this one, the place reliability is the very product that we promote. But allow us to not overlook the typical Nigerian. He pays twice: tokens for the grid, then petrol for a small generator. Or he merely sits at midnight. And he’s removed from alone: in keeping with the World Bank, almost 87 million Nigerians haven’t any entry to electrical energy in any respect, greater than in any
different nation on earth. That individual is your buyer, and that individual is your employees. When vitality eats their earnings, they purchase much less. Business survival and family aid are the identical dialog,” she stated.
She emphasised that in lots of Nigerian companies, the generator is the actual ‘chairman’. Because it takes its share of the revenue earlier than anybody else is paid, and it by no means misses a board assembly.
“And the fuel bill is only what we can see. Behind it sit downtime, idle staff, damaged equipment, spoiled stock, and price increases that we cannot pass on. In many businesses, the hidden bill is bigger than the visible one,” Ukabiala added.
Nnaji insisted that for Nigeria to have secure electrical energy, authorities should enable price reflective tariffs. That is, electrical energy suppliers should cost the tariffs that can carry return on their funding in order that they are going to run worthwhile considerations or authorities must be able to subsidize energy. The later, he stated, can be too pricey. So, the important thing to secure energy in Nigeria is for the federal authorities to permit price reflective tariff in order that traders can carry big capital and spend money on the sector.
Back to aviation, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria energy the runways of the key airports within the nation 24 hours. At vital durations they function off grid and energy these services with mills with a view to keep away from energy outage throughout touchdown and take-off of airplanes within the night time.
The NAMA want fixed electrical energy provide to energy most of its vital gear. It depends closely on secure, steady energy to forestall communication dropouts (usually termed “blind spots”) between pilots and air site visitors controllers. Because plane fly always of the day, any lack of electrical energy threatens vital air security techniques.
Air site visitors administration wants fixed electrical energy. So additionally, are the Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria (TRACON) which gives radar providers and captures each plane within the airspace.
The communication system, cellular and primary management towers, voice communication system, very excessive frequency transceivers, voice recording system, navigational aids, together with instrument Landing System, should be working for twenty-four hours.
What the discussion board on energy encapsulated final week was that presently Nigerians are spending an excessive amount of cash to get electrical energy; but, they don’t seem to be getting satisfactory provide. For there to be secure energy provide, the trade have to be made engaging to traders by making funding within the sector worthwhile.
