ABB promises to help FG realise ambition in power sector
The Federal Government can only sustain her current efforts at having a sustainable power supply through a well articulated maintenance culture which can be achieved through a thorough University education and vocational training programme , Ulrich Spiesshofer ,ABB chief executive officer has said .
Through the educational programmes engineers and technicians that would empowered to be able to maintain the infrastructures after they would have been put in place and thereby avoid the current dilapidating situation of the power assets we have today.
He said his company is ready to help the country to upgrade her power infrastructure to achieve optimum capacity utilisation, adding with the technology the company has developed the country can be assured that out of the existing grid more value can be achieved while the grid can be upgraded to world class infrastructure environment. This he said suggest that ABB should invest in Nigeria.
ABB according to Spiesshofer is focusing on Africa generally but is putting Nigeria on top of its focus.
In an interview with Businessday in Abuja, he said he was in the country to ramp up activities to support the government current’s growth trajectory in the power sector.
He said his discussions with Federal Government officers clearly indicated that the agenda of upgrading power utilities and other industries meets perfectly with the capability of ABB saying that the two parties can strong partners. He lauded the Federal Government’s agenda towards growing the economy and particularly improving electricity supply.
He said Nigeria needs to make sure that she gets the power generation ramp up, safely , reliable and efficiently transmit to the point of consumption.“ At the moment the power grids has challenges, as we have too many outages, no reliability in power supply. This situation did not only jeopradise competitiveness of the power grid itself, but also the industry as a whole.”
He said the country has vast natural resources but for these resources to find their way into industrial value chain it is important that she has reliable power infrastructure at the level of transmission and distribution to safe guide the competitiveness of the country.
The international energy provider, said it is set to fully exploit the potentials in African energy market, estimated at about $17 billion (about N3.2 trillion). He said the continent is one of the worlds’ fastest growing economies, which his company determined to contribute significantly through its power and automation solutions.
This, according to him, was in line with the ABB’s vision which spurs it to invest over $1.5 billion yearly on research and development.
After a meeting with the Presidency in Abuja, Spiesshofer said the company’s strong presence in Lagos and Abuja is strategic to explore opportunities in various and diversified areas including transmission and distribution, oil and gas, process industries and many other new trends such as renewable, micro-grids and data centres.
Stressing that innovation, passion and diversity are the hallmarks of ABB, he said, “As a global leader in power and automation technologies, ABB is continuously pioneering reliable, cleaner and more efficient energy and automation solutions, helping its customers increase the productivity of their industrial and infrastructure operations.”
Eric Mayoraz, the Swiss Ambassador to Nigeria, during the visit, assured of the consular’s support to drive more Swiss companies to invest in Nigeria as well as encouraging the existing ones.
OLUSOLA BELLO