Front and more serious: Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola touring some completed power station to for assessment recently.
As part of fresh efforts to save the nation’s power sector from total collapse, industry analysts have called on the re-elected President Muhammadu Buhari to as a matter of urgency, unbundle the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing currently managed by former Lagos State governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola.
Investors who drew up agenda for the second term of the President argued that should the three ministries remain as one unit, nothing is likely to be achieved in the next four year just as it has been in the last three years.
According to them, the nation’s demand for power is so critical that the sector need not be joined with other sensitive ministries to avoid further distraction in driving progressive polices for the revival of the sector. The experts who spoke to our correspondents agreed that the nation’s power sector had been on a virtuous cycle of endless sad news both for industrialists’ and ordinary Nigerian on the streets.
The experts’ views and new agenda for the second tenure of the government are coming at the same time it was reported that electricity generation in the country plunged to 3,456 megawatts this week, losing 1,108MW in seven days.
Latest data on power statistics obtained by our Abuja Bureau chief Thursday revealed that total power generation dropped from 4,564.60MW as of 6.00am on February 19 to 3,456.20MW on February 24, a day after the presidential and National Assembly elections and slightly rising to 4,358MW as at Monday and no sign of going up further early March.
Otherwise, figures from the Nigeria Electricity System Operator, an arm of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, showed that generation fell further to 3,456.60MW as of 6.00 am on February 26.
Whereas the Nigeria’s installed generation capacity stands at 12,910.40MW; available capacity at 7,652.60MW; transmission wheeling capacity at 8,100MW; and the peak generation ever attained at 5,375MW.
Business Hilights can authoritatively report that Nigeria currently generates most of its electricity from gas-fired power plants, while output from hydropower plants makes up about 30 per cent of the total.
Besides, analysts regretted the rising instances of massive unutilized generated power due to evacuation issues bordering distribution firms, transmission hiccups and issues of water management at dams from time to time.
In an interview, the Executive Secretary of Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC) which is the lead body for the Gencos, Dr Joy Ogaji noted that whereas the major challenges of their members are problem to transmission and distribution, “The frequency of instructions to either increase load or decrease load (ramp up and ramp down) and, in some cases, shut down, has induced damaging stresses to the components of the machines”.
“These instructions, reflective of the grid behaviour, are subjecting key electrical components of the power plants to operational stresses. Our available generation has always been steady between 7,500MW and 8,000MW; you can check the records at the National Control Centre, Osogbo,” Ogaji averred.
