Paucity of gas fluctuating power between 3,000 and 3,300 megawatts—Atiku Abubakar
The Managing Director, Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Dr. Atiku Abubakar, the Managing Director, Transmission Company of Nigeria, on Sunday said “The country power generation hovers between 3,000 megawatts and 3,300 megawatts due to challenge caused by inadequate gas supply,” meaning that the activities of vandals are still unabated.
Addressing participants at a recently organized electricity customers’ forum by the Eko Electricity Distribution Plc in Lagos, he said about 130 power transmission projects have been abandoned across the country since 2002 due to inadequate funds to execute them.
Abubakar, however, regretted that the development could not be attained now causing generation to shrink to about 300 megawatts due to gas constraint in the country.
While assuring that the government is determined to turn the challenges to opportunities in order to spur the growth of the sector, he said “We have the capacity to generate 7,500 megawatts of electricity but we are faced with issues of gas challenge and fund.
He said the Omotosho/Egbin 330/11 KVA line, which is one of the projects, would be given priority attention in the 2017 budget.
Corroborating TCN boss, the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Power, Daniel Asuquo, disclosed that the lower chamber was cooperating with the Federal Government to ensure the growth of the nation’s power sector.
He commended the new owners of Eko Electricity Distribution Company on the initiatives taken to improve the quantity, quality and reliability of power supply to its customers within its network despite the shortfall in power allocation from the national grid, saying the initiative by the company to source supplementary power through embedded generation options would guarantee greater stability of supply.
Asuquo said it would also reduce the DISCO’s Aggregate Technical, Commercial and Collections Loss, ATC&C, urging the company to improve on its metering system.
According to him, Eko Electricity Distribution had mopped up excess power from existing captive generation within its licence area and entered into bilateral agreements with Independent Power Providers for power generation.
