System characterisation of the Nigerian electricity network

The Electric Industry is undergoing significant and irreversible changes worldwide. This is reshaping the industry that has been remarkably stable for a long time and characterised by vertically integrated structure. In radial networks such as the structure of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) owned grid, the losses are expectedly high [7]. Transmission losses alone represents up to 5-15% of the total generation capacity that is inadequate and worth millions of Naira [4-5]. Several other factors have motivated the global changes occurring in the electric power industry such as energy trading, pricing and economics of power production, economic dispatch, power delivery and management [12-19]. The Nigerian government owned company is being unbundled and offered for sale in internationally competitive bidding. Many foreign companies from Europe, America and Asia are participating however the needed technical data, audit and as built topologies for informed decision are not available. This paper presents power system analysis of the Shiroro Complex utilizing real data and onsite measurements using ERACS power system analysis software. The study was carried out under different loading and generation conditions, modeling philosophy, power flows and fault level. In all cases, the result obtained demonstrates the need for additional power generation facility and means of voltage compensation at receiving ends. For operational convenience and efficiency, this paper proposed regionalization in transmission and analysed one of the regions in Nigeria as a case study. This is to position the region as a suitable candidate for application of FACTS devices.