Nigeria’s Niger Delta Power Holding Company is using artificial intelligence to predict when its gas-fired turbines will break down before they actually do, the company’s chief executive said, as the state-owned generator races to cut the chronic outages that have long strangled economic activity across Africa’s most populous nation.
Jennifer Adighije, managing director and CEO of NDPHC, told the Nigerian Economic Summit Group that the company has deployed AI-powered predictive maintenance systems that allow plant engineers to catch equipment faults early, flagging deteriorating components through continuous sensor feeds, machine-learning algorithms, and real-time data analysis rather than waiting for scheduled service checks.
“We have moved beyond preventive maintenance to predictive maintenance,” Adighije said.
The distinction matters in a country where power shortages routinely force businesses to run expensive diesel generators for hours each day.
Under the old maintenance model, engineers serviced turbines on fixed timetables regardless of actual equipment condition, a method that left little room to anticipate sudden failures. The AI system, by contrast, monitors turbine vibration levels, thermal behaviour, fuel efficiency, and component wear on a continuous basis, enabling intervention before a fault cascades into an unplanned shutdown.
