Economic growth and development of any nation is unarguably reliant on the supply of adequate, affordable and reliable electric power. Nigeria is yet to attained a meaning level of development in both infrastructure and economy. For the nation to achieved the desired growth in terms of development and grow her commercial sector thereby improving the GDP of the nation, the electric power demand needs and supply of the country must be holistically meet. The devastating effect of lack of sufficient power to commercial centers has been on the increase over the years. The negative impact has been estimated in various forms, such as failure to thrive and total collapse of commercial centers as well as loss of revenue which has negative impact on return on investment. Most of these commercial centers usually rely more on (off-grid) supply rather than connecting to the national grid. This alternative source of energy and technology has a direct negative impact on the cost of the daily functionality in terms of production and services of those centers especially with the ever increasing cost of fuel and diesel. With the increase in population, energy demand is on the increase over the years. The aim of this research paper is to forecast the actual electric energy demand for commercial centers of the power sector using time-series model. Its outcome reveals that Nigerians needs approximately about 20,000MW of power to efficiently supply here commercial sector for optimum productivity and maximum results on or before 2030.
Keywords: commercialization in Nigeria, electric power generation & consumption, energy demand modeling, time-series analysis and electric energy demand estimate.
