Minister promises 10,000 megawatts by December 2014

Chinedu Nebo, minister of power, has assured of 10,000 megawatts by December 2014 and boasted that Nigerians would enjoy eighteen hours of steady power.

Nebo gave the assurance while speaking with newsmen in Abuja after he appeared before the National Working Committee of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) along with the minister of state for power to brief them of the scorecard of the ministry.

Nebo in answer to a question on when his promise of 10,000 megawatts of power to the party would be met said, “In 2014, we envisage 10,000 megawatts. With all the other NIPPs work going on and the Niger Delta Power Company coming up and to be commissioned by December 2013, we look forward to 10,000 megawatts come December 2014. And this is what we are working towards if we succeed making it more than that we are very happy people.

“But we are focused on actually delivering 10,000 megawatts by 2014. And this by our calculations and data we have on ground will give at least between 17 and 18 hours of power supply to Nigerians.

“The 24 hours power supply will happen but we are working steadily towards that”.

Nebo, however, noted, “We are inhibited at the amount of power we can actually wheel out, that is transmit. If for instance all of a sudden we decide to put 5,000 megawatts into the transmission network the system will immediately collapse.

“That is why we are spending a lot of energy and resources working on beefing up the transmission network in Nigeria. That is very critical and transmission is a veritable bottleneck for now”.

On the cost implication for 10,000 megawatts target by 2014, Nebo said “I am not going to hazard a guess on that because transmission alone to get it moving you are talking of billions of US dollars worth of investment”.