Nigeria’s transmission network now has an infrastructure capacity of 54,995 megawatts across 333 transmission lines, according to the Transmission Company of Nigeria, but the figure needs to be viewed against the much smaller amount of electricity the country actually generates and delivers to consumers.
The latest disclosure by TCN General Manager, Operations, Godwin Aguiyi, has renewed attention on a long standing question in Nigeria’s electricity sector: whether the biggest obstacle to reliable power is the capacity of the national transmission network, or the limited amount of electricity available for transmission and the problems further down the supply chain.
Aguiyi said TCN’s network covers about 17,636 kilometres and is operated through 10 regions, 31 sub regions and 10 work centres, with nearly 960 personnel. He described transmission as the backbone connecting generation to distribution and stressed that electricity generated but not delivered to consumers has little practical value.
The latest figures are significant because they provide a snapshot of the physical scale of infrastructure supporting the national grid. They should not, however, be confused with Nigeria’s actual available electricity supply or TCN’s operational wheeling capacity.
Nigeria’s installed generation capacity stood at 13,625MW in April 2026, according to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission. Yet only an average of 4,286MW was available for dispatch during that month, giving a plant availability factor of 31 per cent.
That difference illustrates one of the central problems in the electricity market. Having generation plants with a combined installed capacity of 13,625MW does not mean 13,625MW is available to consumers.
TCN has separately reported an operational transmission wheeling capacity of about 8,700MW. In 2025, the company said it successfully wheeled a record 5,801.84MW across the national grid, while NERC records show that 5,801.84MW was the highest power generated and delivered to the grid on March 4, 2025.
The figures therefore point to a substantial gap between installed generation capacity, available generation, transmission capability and the electricity ultimately supplied to customers.
Transmission Has Expanded, But Reliability Remains An Issue
Nigeria’s transmission infrastructure has undergone considerable expansion in recent years.
Earlier 2026 data from TCN put the network at more than 18,600 kilometres, with 92 transmission circuits at 330kV and 215 at 132kV. The company also reported 57 substations at 330kV and 186 at 132kV, supported by 496 power transformers.
TCN also said it commissioned 61 transformers with a combined capacity of 5,589MVA in 2024 and nine additional transformers totalling 1,637.5MVA in the first quarter of 2025.
The infrastructure improvements have occurred alongside continuing grid disturbances. NERC recorded a full national grid collapse on September 10, 2025, although the system was fully restored within 28 minutes. A partial collapse also occurred on December 29, 2025, after the failure of a circuit breaker on the Benin to Onitsha 330kV line.
These incidents do not by themselves establish that transmission capacity is inadequate. They demonstrate instead that the performance of the grid depends not only on how much infrastructure exists, but also on equipment condition, system stability, generation and demand balance, protection systems, maintenance and operational management.
The structure of the transmission and system operation segment has also changed.
Following reforms under the Electricity Act 2023, the Nigeria Independent System Operator began market and system operations in April 2025, while TCN retained responsibility for transmission service provision and its physical transmission assets. NERC says NISO is responsible for functions including generation scheduling, transmission scheduling, load balancing, dispatch and wholesale market administration.
The separation is intended to create clearer responsibilities between managing the physical transmission infrastructure and operating the electricity system and market.
TCN’s Aguiyi said the arrangement allows the company to retain specialised personnel responsible for its transmission assets while working with the independent system operator.
The latest 54,995MW figure is therefore best understood as an infrastructure capacity measure, not evidence that Nigeria can supply 54,995MW of electricity.
NERC’s data shows why. With 13,625MW installed generation capacity and only 4,286MW available on average in April 2026, the country was operating far below the headline capacity of its generating fleet.
Transmission losses also remain part of the equation. NERC recorded an average transmission loss factor of 8.58 per cent in the second quarter of 2025, meaning that for every 100MWh injected into the transmission network, 8.58MWh was either lost in transmission or consumed within transmission facilities rather than delivered to distribution companies or exported.
The latest disclosure from TCN therefore provides a useful measure of the size of Nigeria’s transmission backbone, but the more important test for households and businesses remains how much dependable electricity moves through that backbone and ultimately reaches consumers.
As Nigeria continues to invest in generation, transmission and distribution, the available evidence suggests that improving electricity supply will require progress across the entire chain rather than relying on expansion in one segment alone.