A move suggesting that Nigerian industrialists’ have lost confidence on the possibilities of the current Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola to revive the electricity sector is now playing out.
Now, manufacturers are thinking on how they can cluster together and raise funds to build an independent power plant (IPP) that will only serve their companies within their location and cut off permanently from the headaches of public power source.
Already, the chairman of Manufacturers Power Development Company Limited, a subsidiary of MAN, Ibrahim Usman, has averred that the poor power supply in the country was seriously affecting the manufacturing sector, hence the partnership geared at developing small capacity IPPs in its industrial clusters.
According to him, the project, which is in the pilot phase and expected to kick off with an industrial estate within Henry Carr in Ikeja, will enable manufacturers to manage their energy generation and consumption gain as well as strategise for power mix like solar, wind, waste-to-energy and biomass in capacities between five and 15 megawatts.
Explaining more on how they intent to handle issues that may arise in the course of the implementation, Usman said the pilot phase would assist operators in deploying the project on a larger scale.
Giving more insights, the vice president, North-west Zone of MAN, said the manufacturers would deploy incremental power generation strategy based on needs assessment in order to ensure that industrial clusters’ power demands are met.
He said the MAN IPP pilot scheme will start in areas where gas is available like Lagos, Ogun and Rivers states, while solar energy would be deployed in the northern region of the country.
“There is no one model for all as different states have different needs. Talks are ongoing with strategic partners to deploy liquefied petroleum/natural gas in locations like Abuja, Kano, Ibadan, Enugu and Nnewi. It is going to be a case-by-case model for industrial firms. There are foreign technical partners willing to establish smaller capacity solar farms of five to 10 megawatts, even as waste energy will not be left out,” Usman added.
