FASHOLA SEEKS LEGISLATION FOR STATES TO GENERATE, TRANSMIT ELECTRICITY

In a bid to ensure that Lagos State attains its minimum electricity supply of 10,000 megawatts, Governor Babatunde Fashola has called for a legislation that will empower each state of the federation to generate and transmit electricity for the benefits of its citizenry.

Speaking at a Community Enterprise Development Conference held in Lagos recently, Fashola decried what he called federal government policies that are not effective, especially in the area of electricity generation.

He also indicated the readiness of the state government to partner credible investors in implementing a framework that will harness the state’s renewable energy resources.

The governor also called on investors to take advantage of abundant renewable resources like solar, biomass, wind, hydro and tidal waves with low greenhouse gas emission coefficients and primary energy factors.

According to him, this will ensure availability, accessibility and affordability to modern energy for economic and commercial activities.  

TCN PLANS 20,000MW EVACUATION CAPACITY BY 2020

As part of the measures to strengthen the transmission infrastructure to withstand increase in power generation, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) plans to boost its infrastructure to have the capacity to evacuate 20,000 megawatts of electricity by 2020.

The country’s weak transmission network has led to frequent collapse of the power infrastructure as soon as generation exceeds 4,000 megawatts because the network cannot evacuate huge electricity capacity to the distribution companies.

But speaking at the weekend in Lagos at the occasion to mark the flag-off of the release of 248 containers of power equipment imported by the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) and abandoned for 11 years at the ports in Lagos and Onne in Rivers State, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of TCN, Mr Mack Kast said the company had massive plans to refurbish the power sector.

The TCN boss, whose company would take delivery of the containers from the Nigeria Customs Service on behalf of the defunct PHCN, said the release of the equipment would bring to reality the dream of President Goodluck Jonathan in reforming the power sector.

“The generation companies have been privatised; the distribution companies have been privatised. These were major steps. The Transmission Company of Nigeria  has major efforts on the way. We have plans for massive refurbishment of the power sector. It is our goal that we are going to double the evacuation capacity of TCN. It is our expectation that by 2020, we will have the capacity to evacuation 20,000 megawatts of power,” Kast said.

WHY INTERNATIONAL FINANCIERS SHUNNED NIGERIA’S POWER PRIVATISATION

FIVE months after the privatisation of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN’s assets, uncertainty and transparency issues have been identified as reasons why international financial institutions shunned the exercise.

The Country Manager, AF Mercados, a specialist consulting and transaction advisory firm based in Madrid, Ms. Rahila Thomas, told Vanguard that these factors contributed to the non-commitment of international financiers.  

According to her, “For you to bring in international financing, a lot has to be done about the bankability of the projects, because international financing is not like local financing. They are much more thorough. They have limited room for risks.

“Some of the Nigerian banks have gone into this because they understand how the Nigerian society works. A lot of the banks here do corporate financing and not project financing.

“When you bring in international financial institutions, they want to do project financing. They will not get into corporate financing. You need to ensure that the tariffs are right. You need to ensure that all the documents – power purchase agreements, gas supply agreements, and transmission agreements are structured in a way that they pass risks around everybody that can bear the risk. And obligations are placed on the people that can meet those obligations.

“If that is clear and they can see a tariff path that they bank on, why not. That is why you saw that there was limited international finance during the PHCN transactions, because there were too many grey areas. You have the transmission issue, gas issue; generators are not able to produce. They are not getting their money in full.

Thomas, whose company consults for six distribution companies on regulatory matters, also said that the issue of tariff is a very sensitive one. This is because over the years people have suffered poor service delivery, customers are tired and people complain about estimated bills.

“What has happened over the years is that PHCN needed to increase their billing efficiency. Instead of trying to locate where energy is being stolen, they take out metered customers from energy and whatever energy is left, they spread across customers that are not metered. That is why the monthly bills are very high. People are paying more for the losses in the system, because they don’t have meters,” she said.

Source | Here

POWER GENERATION DROPS BY 963MW

The erratic supply of electricity to homes and business premises in the last two weeks is as a result of the drop in power generation by about 963 megawatts as a result of gas supply constraints.

The electricity generation, which was put at 3,463.40MW as of March 20, dropped to 2,500MW on Mondy.

The Board Chairman, Transmission Company of Nigeria, Mr. Ibrahim Waziri, who disclosed this to journalists on Monday on the sidelines of the investors’ conference organised by the firm in Abuja, said the worsening state of power supply in the last two weeks was as a result of the series of incidents that had bedevilled the sector lately.

He said, “Gas supply has dropped significantly in the last two weeks; in fact, it is exactly two weeks. That has resulted in reduced generation to about 2,500MW as of this (Monday) morning; we are back to square one. But we are addressing all these issues.

“Then, of course, we had accidents along the Benin-Sapele road and a lot of transmission lines collapsed due to fire incidents. These affected a very small area in that locality in terms of giving them power. But like I said earlier, these issues are being addressed.”

At the conference proper, the Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, said the Federal Government was in bilateral and multilateral relationships with the governments of other countries for the importation and exportation of electricity.

Nebo, who was represented by the Minister of State for Power, Mr. Mohammed Wakili, told the investors that the country needed about $8bn to boost its power transmission infrastructure in the next five years.

He said the Federal Government had signed a Memorandum of Understating with the Democratic Republic of Congo to supply electricity to Nigeria.

Nebo said, “The government of Nigeria is in bilateral and multilateral relationships at various stages of advancement with other governments for the importation and exportation of power. For example, Nigeria has signed an MoU with the Democratic Republic of Congo for the importation of electricity from the Inga Dam Power Plant for both local consumption and export to other countries.

“The Inga is envisaged to exceed 40,000 megawatts on full exploitation. The TCN network spreads to all parts of the country and across the borders to some neighbouring countries to form part of the West African Power Pool.

“With the realisation of Inga and other initiatives, Nigeria will become a regional hub in international electricity trade, exporting large swathes of internally generated as well as imported power to the WAPP countries.”