Manya Rathore
Research expert covering India
Electricity in Nigeria - statistics & facts
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. Providing electricity for such a population size has proven challenging, with demand generally exceeding production. As of 2023, the nation's population amounted to nearly 224 million. In the same year, around 40.7 terawatt hours of electricity were generated. This was low in comparison to the level of electricity demand, which exceeded 40.6 terawatt hours. Moreover, the amount of energy that was supplied reached roughly 24 gigawatt hours in 2023. Visibly, more investments in electricity production are needed to bridge the existing production-demand-supply gap in the country.
Accessing electricity
Not everyone in Nigeria is able to obtain electricity for use. In fact, in 2022, around 61 percent of the population had access to electricity. As of the same year, the absence of electricity was most prevalent in rural communities, as only 27 percent of them had access to electrical energy. In contrast, the share reached around 89 percent among the urban population. Moreover, households in the northeast and northwest zones were the most electricity-deprived in the same. Therefore, it is not surprising that the two regions reported households owning the least number of electrical appliances in the country in 2020.How does the country consume and benefit from electricity?
In Nigeria, the residential consumption of electricity is higher than that of industries. In 2020, while nearly 59,000 terajoules of electricity were consumed by residences, the amount reached below 14,000 terajoules in terms of industrial consumption. Overall, the amount of electric power consumed per capita was estimated at roughly 165 kilowatt hours in 2024. Indeed, Nigeria economically benefits from electricity distributed and consumed both locally and outside its borders. It earned more than 155 million U.S. dollars in revenue from electricity exports in 2022, which was even lower compared to the preceding year. Moreover, as of the second quarter of 2024, Ikeja and Eko made the most monetary contribution to the country in electricity distribution.
