The President and Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, said the group generates up to 1,540 megawatts for manufacturing operations in all its subsidiaries.
Dangote disclosed this on Thursday while speaking during a fireside chat with the Prime Minister of Grenada, where he was a Special Guest.
Dangote said his investment in power generation was to achieve energy sufficiency and independence rather than be subjected to Nigeria’s insufficient and unreliable power supply.
He said the decision was advised by business experts just when he was getting prepared to transit from trade exclusive to manufacturing.
“The second issue has to do with electricity. And the only way we thought to address that was to decide that for all our businesses, we would generate our own power. And that’s why today if you look at it as a group, we are generating our own power, self-consumed power, 1540 megawatts,” he said.
Dangote Group generates 30 times more power than Grenada
Dangote Group’s 1,540 power generation is 30 times more than what Grenada, an Island country in the Caribbean, generates.
The Prime Minister of Grenada, Dickon Mitchell, expressed his admiration for Dangote Group’s power generating capacity, noting that the country generates 50 megawatts.
“The total amount of power being generated by Grenada is 50 megawatts,” he asserted.
“So, your businesses generate more power than the entire island,” he added in amazement.
Big manufacturing companies self-generate power
Many big manufacturing companies in Nigeria have long abandoned the national grid due to its frequent collapses and inadequate power.
- The major challenge affecting Nigeria’s manufacturing sector is the high cost of energy due to inadequate and unreliable supply from the national grid.
- Industry experts say many companies are self-generating through a diverse energy mix.
According to the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, manufacturers in Nigeria spent N238.31 billion on alternative energy sources in the first half of 2024.
What you should know
- Nigeria has a power-generating capacity of about 10,000 megawatts per day but it is underutilised, hence it generates just about 5,000 MW.
- This is inadequate for its population of over 200 million and also impedes industrialisation.
- The country’s energy poverty has forced many companies to leave the country for other countries with stable, reliable, and affordable power supply.
