New investors for Nigeria's power sector soon

New investors for power sector soon – FG

The Federal Government has said it would soon call for bid from new investors in the power generation and distribution chain following failure of the current investors to improve the nation’s electricity industry. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, dropped the hint at the commissioning of the power substation infrastructure built by the Niger Delta Power Holding Company, NDPHC, at Abeokuta, Ogun State capital. He said that the Federal Government has already taken the decision to further open the electricity sector to new investors after realizing that the national grid system can’t meet the power demand of consumers. Government he said has approved substantial change strategies backed by various policies that will encourage more investments to the industry. According to him, the present administration has made some remarkable impact by boosting installed generation capacity to 13,437 Megawatts, MW, and available capacity to 8,342 MW, and 7,000 evacuation capacity, adding that t he i na bili ty of Di s t ri bu tion Companie s , Di sCo s , to deliver g rid power to end u ser s have significantly distorted the efforts of government. He noted that power di stri bution companie s’ in sufficient inf ra str uc tu re ha s restricted distribution to about 4,0 0 0MW and at peak period s 5,40 0MW.

i d e n t i f i e d w e a k n e s s of t h e DisCos which include inadequate c a p i t a l t o p r o v i d e n e e d e d i nf ra s t r u c t u r e a n d me te r i n g challenge s among other s . He stated that in order to re solve the se challenge s , gover nment i n t r o d u c e d t h e M e te r A s s e t P r o v i d e r, M A P, s c h e m e t o re solve the lingering metering challenges in the system, adding t hat so fa r t he Di sC o s have received and proce s sed a bout 2 5 0 , 0 0 0 a p p l i c a t i o n s f r o m cu stomer s , and that hopefully the number would quadruple by end of the yea r. He expre s sed optimism t h a t w i t h t h e implementation of the MAP, the industry would be able to close the 5.3 million metering gap existing currently. He said other mea su re s taken by government i n clu d e t he Sieme n s Pha s e d Electrification Roadmap, which wa s f l a g ge d off r e c e n tly by President Muhammadu Buhari. He said that under pha se 1, Tran smi s sion and Di stri bution would be a ble to deliver 7,0 0 0 MW, a nd u n d e r p h a s e 2 , 11,0 0 0 MW would be achieved while 25,0 0 0MW i s ta rgeted under pha se 3 . He explained t hat gover nment ex p e c t s t he DisCos to recapitalize and come up with re sou rce s to improve o n t h ei r s e r v i c e s , b u t eve n at that the ma rket i s set to welcome new inve stor s in the distribution and generation sub sectors.

I n h i s s p e e c h , t h e M a n a g i n g D i r e c to r a n d C h i ef E xe c u t i v e Officer, of the NDPHC , C hiedu Ug bo, said t hat t he compa ny ’s contri bution to the Tran smi s sion g rid sy stem ha s tran sformed the hitherto radial 330Kv/132KV grid into a more robu st g rid sy stem w i t h s i g n i f i c a n t p r ov i s i o n of a l te r n a tive p owe r f low r o u te s which no serve a s redundancie s a n d w h i c h h a s r e s u l t e d i n a mo re relia ble a nd s ta ble g rid . He recalled the commi s sioning of the 22 0 - kilometer long 330 KV D ou ble Ci r cui t li ne s p rovidi ng a l t e r n a t i v e s u p p l y r o u t e s t o A buja and the FCT f rom Gereg u through a new Lokoja substation, a new Gwa g wa la da s u b s t a tion into the Transmission Company of Nigeria , TCN, Katampe and Apo substations with several significant substation developments along that rou te . He a d de d t ha t b e twe en 2 015 a nd now a bout 3 0 N IPP Tran smi s sion P rojec t s inherited by pre sent admi ni s t ration have b e en comple te d while ove r 70 Di s tri bution P rojec t s have al so b e e n c om pl e t e d a c r o s s t h e 6 geopolitical zones.

T h e M a n a g i n g D i r e c t o r a n d C hief E xecutive Officer, of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, T C N , U sma n Moha mme d , s ai d t h e c om p a ny h a s si g n if i c a n tly improved it s service s and i s now not rega rded a s the weake st link in the industry chain. Mohammed said i t s whe eli ng capaci ty ha s imp rove d to a b ou t 8 ,0 0 0 MW b u t la me n te d t ha t Di s C o s a r e frustrating effor ts of the company by rejec ting load . According to him, most substations are stranded d u e to i n a bi l i t y of D i s C o s to take load , addi ng t ha t all t he su b station s put in place in Kano State to day a re idle a s Di sCo s a re not willing to take up to 30 p e r c ent of powe r f rom t hem . He app eale d to gove r nment to intervene by ex tending f unding suppor t to the DisCos but warned that the TCN may be prompted to take over any Di sco that i s not willing to take load from existing stations.