How FG fed more power to national grid despite vandalism, sabotage – Fashola

Restoration of repair works and maintenance of broken down turbines at the nation’s hydro plants, which enhanced generating capacity of the plants during the period of increased rainfall and high water levels, were the major contributing factors to the current addition of more power to the national grid.
Babatunde Fashola, minister of power, works and housing, at the weekend, disclosed this.
According to a statement issued by Hakeem Bello, his special adviser on communications, Fashola, who gave the explanation when he made a presentation at the Wilson Centre, Washington DC, United States, said the repair works and maintenance carried out on the hitherto abandoned turbines, as part of steps taken to achieve incremental power succeeded despite of vandalism and sabotage of power assets.
Making a presentation on the theme, “Leadership and the Politics of Reforms in Africa: Lessons from Nigeria,” the minister said electricity supply increased by 400 megawatts in the last two weeks due to increase in the generating capacity of the hydro power plants achieved through the repairs and maintenance carried out on them in the last one year.
According to Fashola, the turbines, some of them abandoned and not maintained for over three decades, received due attention and the increase in rainfall would not have meant much if the turbines were not repaired.
He recalled that over 3,000mw of power had been lost over the last six months due to consistent vandalism and sabotage of oil and gas pipelines and assets.
“In the last one year, we have done a lot of repairs and maintenance work so that every year, of course, there is increased circle of rainfall and water levels, but if you have three turbines and only one is working you can only depend on one. So, where we had one working, we now have two, where we had two, we now have three,” he said.
The minister further noted, “the hydros are giving us almost 400mw of power and that is a lot of power, given our situation. And we have added about 1mw of solar and there is more coming, so I think, we are on our way.”
The minister had earlier promised that current boost in power would be further strengthened by various transmission projects currently being carried out in several areas of the nation’s six geo-political zones.
Coming against the background of complaints in some quarters that transmission was the weakest link in the power chain, he said progress was being made in the expansion of transmission, adding that it would be consistent with achieving incremental power within the value chain.
He listed such areas where expansion projects were currently going on to include the eastern axis, where the Ikot-Ekpene-Alaoji transmission project had taken off, up to Enugu, from where it would boost power all the way to Markurdi.
Pointing out that some of the transmission projects have already been completed, he said work was currently going on in the Kano-Kaduna Transmission Station, Lambe Transmission Station, Kumbotsu Transmission Station and the Alagbon Transmission Station in Lagos, among others.
According to Fashola, “We have finished the one in Okada in Edo State and there are more that have been awarded this year; the Gurara Transmission to take power from Gurara into Kaduna is near completion. It is a site I have visited so work is going on.”
Fashola dispelled fears from some quarters that with Manitoba Hydro International out of the picture, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) would not be able to cope with the energy transmission capacity in the country, assuring that the company was capable of carrying the capacity effectively.
According to the Minister, “the transmission capacity of TCN is well over 5,000mw as we speak today. The capacity we have ever generated is 5,074mw. So we can carry what we generate today. We are not vulnerable as not to transmit what we have”.
Frowning at what he described as generalization in just describing the TCN as the weakest link in the electricity value chain, Fashola noted that building a transmission station that would be beyond the capacity of the amount of power produced in the power chain would attract extra cost, but assured that the government was planning for expansion of the transmission segment of the sector because of idle power that is stranded as a result of lack of gas.
“So as we are planning to solve the gas issues we are also planning simultaneously the expansion of the transmission system to synchronise with what is available because idle capacity is also a cost because it is built through a bank loan,” he said.
Recalling that the country attained over 5,000mw of power for the first time in February this year, Fashola, who noted that the power dropped to about 3,000mw because of gas outages, added that the ministry of petroleum has been working hard to put the gas pipelines back.
“But roughly from about 2,000mw of power which we were left with from 5,000MW we have climbed now to 3,000mw, averaging about 3,4000mw to 3,5000mw in the last five weeks. It is still mixed blessings here and there. Some people have power while some people still don’t have. So that is incremental power that we have talked of the first time”, he said.
In the area of projects aimed at achieving incremental power, Fashola, who said the focus of government was mainly on the energy mix initiative to diversify energy source, listed such projects to include the Zungeru Power Plant where work is nearing completion after more than two years of suspension of work and the Azura Power Plant in Edo State where, according to him, work was also suspended for over two years due to court issues.
Noting that there are also many smaller hydro-plants like Chalawa hydro plant, Ikere hydro plant, the minister said there are more than 40 small hydro plants, which the government is trying to bring into procurement and had completed business plans on eight of them.

YANGE IKYAA