The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has refuted claims that the country’s transmission network is the major obstacle to improved electricity supply.
The TCN insists that the national grid currently has the capacity to wheel 8,700 megawatts of electricity, far above the highest power ever generated and delivered to it.
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of TCN, Sule Abdulaziz, made the pushback while speaking at a four-day Parliamentary and Stakeholders’ Engagement Summit on Power Sector Reforms in Nigeria.
He maintained that available industry data showed that transmission was not the primary constraint in the country’s electricity value chain, arguing that while public discourse often portrays the transmission segment as the weakest link in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry, verified figures from the sector paint a different picture.
Abdulaziz said Nigeria’s total installed generation capacity stands at 13,625MW, but the highest volume of electricity ever generated and delivered to the grid remains 5,801.84MW.
He noted that the record was achieved on March 4, 2025, when TCN also transmitted a historic 128,370.75 megawatt-hours of electricity within a single day.
The TCN boss further argued that while Nigeria’s installed generation capacity exceeds 13,000MW, actual electricity dispatch remains significantly lower because of challenges affecting the entire electricity value chain.
The TCN boss said the company had increased the nation’s bulk power wheeling capacity from about 7,000MW to a confirmed 8,700MW, representing an additional 1,700MW evacuation capacity added to the national grid.
He attributed the feat to years of infrastructure investment, engineering improvements and support from the Federal Government and international development partners.
He further disclosed that between January 2024 and November 2025, the company commissioned 82 new power transformers nationwide, adding approximately 8,500MVA of transformation capacity to the grid.
According to him, the deployment represents one of the most extensive transformer installation programmes in the history of the transmission company.
