TCN gets $1.55bn multilateral corporations facility to boost transmission

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) says it has secured $1.55 billion from multilateral corporations  to finance its transmission expansion projects  in the country.

The Managing Director of TCN, Usman  Mohammed, said this in Kano on Monday, while addressing newsmen. He said that TCN had approached multilateral donors to raise significant finance  to execute its numerous projects in the country.

He said sourcing of fund was also designed to realise TCN’s ambition of increasing transmission capacity by 20,000 megawatts in few years time.

He said that the provision of the fund had resulted in the resuscitation of  some projects that  were hitherto abandoned .

“The Abuja transmission project, which is supposed to provide three sub-stations and provide another avenue for supply through Abuja from Lafia, has been completed.

“We have also resuscitated the JAICA project that has been on the drawing board for a long some time now.

“Those two projects, plus other projects, cost about 1.55 billiion dollars which is coming from the World Bank, African Development Bank (AfDB) the Islamic Development Bank, JAICA itself and the European Union (EU) .”

Mohammed said that the TCN was also collaborating with the state governments to resolve the problem of right of ways on transmission lines in the country.

“The payment of compensation to right of ways issue in Nigeria is a big problem, so in trying to expand capacity of transmission lines, the right of ways is a big problem and that is why we are collaborating with state governments.”

He said that Kaduna Government had paid some compensation for some  of the places TCN intended to construct transmission  lines.

“We are working to expand the linesfrom Shiroro to Kaduna, and from Kaduna to Kano, and we are putting a code line that will carry 2,400 transmission capacity, We have never had  that kind of line in Nigeria, but we need to collaborate with states and we have started with Kaduna.”

“The Governor of Kano State is also supporting us on the right of ways between Kano and Kaduna border, and we are working with the governors of Abia, Lagos, Imo and Ogun. So everywhere, we are putting capacity; we are working with the state government there.

The TCN Boss noted that the company is also working to avoid stranded generation in the system.

“On growing the load and avoiding load rejection; we are working with Discos to see how to improve their capacity and we have appointed interface focal officers to help the DisCos pick more load.”

According to him, there is a ‘stranded’ generation of about 2,000 megawatts in the grid.

He said that stranded generation was detrimental to the development of investments in the generation aspect of the sector, hence the need to ensure the evacuation and distribution of power generated to the consumers.