Transforming the Nigerian power sector for sustainable development

Nigeria has been plagued with acute power shortages due to poor performance of its power sector. Several policies and reforms have been implemented by the government to address the poor performance of the power generation, transmission and distribution sectors of the electricity industry. Also various strategies were employed by the government which includes encouraging private sector participation, diversification of the energy generation sources and promoting energy efficiency for sustainable development. In addition the government has spent billions of dollars since 2001 in the construction of new power generation facilities, transmission lines and distribution centers to boost the power supply. It has deregulated the generation and distribution sectors to encourage private sector participation and empowers the Energy Commission of Nigeria to embark on programs and strategies that can boost energy generation from renewable sources. This paper examined the country's energy sources and the power sector reforms adopted by the government. The paper also outlined some recommendations based on reforms implemented by other countries with similar resources to Nigeria which yielded positive results. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.