Fresh answers have emerged on why over 50 per cent of power so generated by Gencos are not effectively evacuated by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to Distribution Companies (Discos), thus causing hiccups in the supply of electricity across the nation.
A recent survey showed that several transmission facilities are outdated or inadequate and too weak to evacuate power generated thereby limiting the Gencos from achieving optimum capacities.
However, the challenge may soon be a thing of the past as the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has secured about $2billion for the rehabilitation of national grid infrastructure and expansion of its transmission capacities up to 20,000 megawatts target within the next three years.
Managing Director of TCN, Usman Gur Mohammed, who gave the revelation during the power sector stakeholders meeting presided by the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, in Kano, said because of the liquidity issue in the power sector, the TCN had sought the support of the ministries of Finance, and Power, which led to the raising of the fund from multilateral donors for the expansion of the grid.
He noted that TCN secured facility from the World Bank, African Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, Japanese Agency for International Cooperation (JAICA), and the European Union.
According to him, “Last week, we advertised for transformer capacities for Kano, Kaduna, Lagos, and Shiroro regions. These are part of the projects we have been able to raise from the multilateral regions, and the total capacity we are working towards achieving is 20,000 megawatts in the next three years”.
“We have also restarted some projects that had not been doing well like the Abuja Transmission Ring Project, which is supposed to put three substations within the capital territory, and provide another avenue for supply from Lafia.
“We have also resuscitated the JAICA project that had been on the drawing board for a long time. Those two projects plus the project that we are going to raise now is about $1.55billion.”
