Benin Disco requires 1400MW to guarantee steady power supply

The Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC), has said that not less than 1400MW was needed to guarantee steady power supply to 750,000 households and 13 million people in Edo, Delta, Ekiti and Ondo State.
The spokesman of the company, Mr. Tayo Adekunle, who made the disclosure in an interview, appealed to customers to understand the value chain in the power sector, saying as at Monday only 325.34MW was supplied to BEDC to distribute to customers in its area of coverage.
Adekunle explained that BEDC on its part had embarked on network expansion and provided or repaired faulty transformers ranging from 300KVA to 2.5KVA, all in a bid to improve power supply.
He added that the company had also embarked on employment and training of fresh graduates to bridge the manpower gap in the sector.
“BEDC is only a retailer of electricity and not a generating outfit, and as such could only distribute what they get in form of power.
“As I speak with you, we only get nine per cent of what is generated as power from the generating company; as at Monday July 2, the BEDC got only 325.34MW from the 3614MW generated by GENCO.
“This is a far cry from the total of 1400MW needed to service our clients in the four states of Ondo, Ekiti, Edo and Delta that we cover,” he said.
He further said to satisfy its customers the company introduced a load shedding system of three hours on and three hours off.
“The BEDC is not isolated from the limitations within the industry, and we have been trying our best to provide safe and reliable electricity to our customers,” he said.
He commended the efforts of the federal government towards diversifying the sources of power generation through renewable energy, coal and other sources, which he said would boost power supply.
On the issue of metering, Adekunle said BEDC had achieved 65.30 per cent progress in its area of coverage, leaving a metering gap of 34.7 per cent.