‘Increased level of water supply not responsible for stability in power supply’

Anthony Youdeowei is the acting chief Operating Officer, Ikeja Electric he recently spoke with Olusola Bello, Energy Editor on the developments in the network and what is responsible for stable power supply.

How far has Ikeja electric gone about the embedded power generation scheme?

The bidding has been done and we are now in the commercial phase of it. All the ranking of the bidders have been done and right now, there are about 11 locations within Ikeja Electric operational that have approved for embedded power generation.

How soon would you make public those that won the bid?

Before the end of October the announcement would be made, because they went through a financial and technical evaluation, once they have been dimmed fit, they would get the lot. Some people fell by the way side, but we are at the final stage just tightening things up to sign the bid. However, we have an idea of the entities that are the top three for some particular lots. So before the end of October, those that win would get started.

How many do you intend to work with?

We intend to work with as many as we can. We have eleven lots and people have bided for all the eleven. Some people bided for two depending on their capacity. So we are ready to work with everybody we dimmed competent enough to work with us.

We are however looking at it to ascertain the entities in question have the financial capability to do what they said they can do in terms of tract records and pedigree. Once they pass those tests, ours is to work with whoever is willing to work with us because at the end of it all, it is the customers that want the product. In as much as we are in the power sector, we remain a service company providing services to members of the public. To us, wherever we can get the product to sell, we would get it so long as the commercial price is right.

Power supply in your network has improved but there is still load shedding, why?

You are right about the improvement in power supply. But we have a major problem at Shagari Estate where a tower is collapsing and because of that two 33kv feeders have been shut down and this has been responsible for a lot of load shedding around some areas within the network. The transmission capacity has some challenges as well and as a result there is still going to some load shedding because they cannot will enough power to distribution companies.  But I know that the Transmission Company of Nigeria is doing a lot of upgrading.

Ikeja electric arrangement with Egbin power plant how far is it working?

It is working very well. The companies serviced by that arrangement have no problems.

Ikeja electric metering system project how far is it going?

The rate of metering currently when compared to the first and second quarters of the year has slowed down because the cost of acquiring meters has doubled.  At the beginning when the plans were made for the metering scheme the exchange rate was at N160 to $1, but today, the rate is N490 to $1.

Unfortunately we don’t have limitless amount of cash so we have to look at the situation and see what we can afford with the money we have.  In running this business, you cannot use all the money in your possession to buy meters. There are things that we have to do as well. You asked us whether we are ready for the ’Light up Lagos project’; yes of course, we also have to maintain the infrastructure that we have. These things are expensive and of course we still have to pay salary. So whatever money we have we have to apportion it based on priority. Yes, metering as far as the customer is concerned is number one priority.

Just a slight digression, when people talked about metering the only make reference to single and maximum demand meters but there are distribution transformers that have to be metered, their feeder transformers that have to be metered in addition to metering customers. This is necessary because we are trying to account for the energy that we send out. Fortunately, all our feeders transformers are metered, a fair number of our distribution transformers are also metered. This is because we realised very quickly, even for us, we are not going to be able to meter customers as much we can, but ultimately at the end of this value chain, the bill we give to customers must be reasonable.

If you have a meter make sure that meter is working properly so that what we read is what you consumed, if you have a pre- paid meter, what we read is what you consumed and if you don’t have a meter the estimated bill we give you would be reasonable. This is a relative thing. If you don’t have a meter National Electric Regulatory Commission (NERC) has said that bill given to you should not be more than 30 per cent of a metered customer in the same category.

Mind you in spite of this there are people in this network that are given meters but don’t want because they are not paying the bill. Because these are smart meters we can seat down in the control room and see what is happening. It is that they are seating down in darkness? .It is not possible. So something is going on and what that says to me is that henceforth, we must install our meters in areas where people would use them. So we are going to be more strategic about how we install our meters especially when there is short supply of electricity. But without the meters we are given people the assurances that their bills would always be reasonable. What people quarrel about is the crazy estimated bill. There is nothing wrong with estimated bill, but how reasonable it is the issue. When customers realise that company is being transparent, they would show a lot of understanding. If I have power for only one hour then my bill should reflect that.

It usually believed that December- January water level would be low and generation expected to drop. How are you addressing this?

It is because you believe it is the water thing that is why supply is constant. February was when we hit the peak of generation this year. The truth of the matter is that today aggregate generation of power is lower than what it was in January, February and March this year.

It is not just down to water because once you generate power whether it is hydro or gas it does not matter. If there is a trend, let it be supported by data. They have blown up the gas pipelines, so gas production is very low. The question is, how much water is going to the hydro that we see this level of stability in supply.

The key thing here is stability of supply. If you are given me 100 megawatts for five, eight, ten hours it is better than giving me 700 megawatts for five minutes and 50 mw for 30 minutes thereby creating imbalances in the system. Give me 100mw I would know how to distribute it.

In the Discos what we are focusing on is efficiency, if I have 100 mw, I would  know how to distribute it equitably and once I have the framework which I have been working on whether it is 10mw you give me or one million, I would be efficient in the way I distribute the power.  But the truth is that i have no control over what I get.

How prepared is your company for Light Up Lagos?

Seriously speaking, the light up Lagos is not something that would happen in six months if you are going to provide the power of such magnitude, except you are going use generators or buying a lot of diesel of course. The project is not like the mobile phone where you use masts with no physical connection, in this case, there is physical connection and it takes time.

In addition, it requires the digging of ground for underground electricity cables which would take some time. It would take a minimum 12 or 18 months.

Secondly, projects like this also depends on the feedstock because the source of gas is far from the plant it would be difficult to achieve immediate connection between the plant and the gas because the cost of bringing the gas infrastructure to those areas where the plants would be cited is still being looked at and it take some years.

But if I take your points we or all stakeholders and we must have to meet to make sure that the project is technically possible.

The second aspect of it is managing customer’s expectations, because if you tell the customers expect power at a certain period and fails to provide it then there could be issues.

So the Lagos State Government is doing the right thing by making sure all the stakeholders are brought into the system so that they can understand what the projects is all about.

The most important thing is to ensure that there is solid foundation because if you miss it, anything you build on it would crumble; the desire to do it is not in doubt. But when there is full appreciation by all the stakeholders when the customers begin to ask questions either the government or stakeholders and the press they would all be speaking on the same page and say the same thing whether it take six months or two years because it has been established that it is technically doable.

Olusola Bello