Worried by the recent drastic drop in the power supply in the country, the Minister of Power, Porf.ChnieduNebo, addressed the press to put the challenges in perspective and also inform Nigerians on what government is doing to stem the tide, MUSA ADAMU reports
Responding to the outcry of the people who complained of the sorry state of electricity supply in recent time in particular and since the takeover of the sector by the private sector in general, the federal government could only save its face by shifting the blame without concrete and justifiable reasons for the situation.
Speaking to the press, the Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, absolved the new owners of the nation’s electricity of any failure to properly manage their new companies.
He said the challenges being faced in the sector currently was not unexpected in the light of the unprecedented scope and magnitude of the Nigerian initiative.
Nebo said the recent dip in power supply had been mainly due inadequate gas supply to thermal power plants arising from recurring acts of vandalism on gas pipelines.
He said in spite all that had been happening, government was on its way to the next phase of the reform, which is the declaration of Transitional Electricity Market (TEM) in which relationship between market participants would be strictly governed by contracts and rules emanating from the regulator.
He said under the new owners the power sector had also recorded significant increases in available generation from a dismal capacity of about 2000mw in mid 2013 to a peak of 4,248mw by in February 2014.
Buttressing his point, the minister listed some of the more recent attacks on gas infrastructure associated with the power sector to include the ELPSA pipeline which was out for over 7 months with a loss of 200 million standard cubic feet of gas and generation capacity of about 800mw and the Trans-
Forcados that is out now with a loss of 200 million standard cubic feet of gas and generation capacity of about 800MW.
According to him, other result of act of vandalism that reulst in the drop in power supplies include the Alakiri – Onne LBVS blasted in March adversely impacting on gas supply to industries, a similar attacks on Trans Niger with a loss of 120 million standard cubic of gas and a loss of 50mw from the Afam VI IPP and the temporary shutdown of the Chevron gas plant this month contributing to the low peak generation of 2,672mw on March 12, 2014.
“I wish to reiterate that gas shortage not only affects the availability of power for dispatch to consumers but the frequency of system collapses is also strongly correlated to this menace. Other factors that recently impacted on service delivery in the sector include occasional loss of transmission lines and substations across the country.
“Many of you here may have read of the collapse of 12 towers on the Sapele/Delta 330kV transmission line that occurred on March 9, 2014 thus, constraining the evacuation of power from the Delta power plant. The incidence was caused by a petrol tanker that caught fire in the vicinity of the high tension transmission line.
“Despite the far reaching impact of losing the line, the cost of restoring the line has been estimated at over N600million with a completion period of 6 months. Other recent incidences that affected availability of power include the fire accident at Osogbo in which a 150MVA transformer was completely lost thus significantly reducing the capacity of the substation. The nation’s power infrastructure suffered attack with the hacking of three tower at Ibuzo,” he said.
On what is being done to tackle the challenges, he however, informed that a lot of rehabilitation work was currently ongoing by the new owners of generation and distribution assets.
He also said the hydropower plant units at Kainji were, for the first time since commissioning in the 1960s, being rehabilitated with funding from the World Bank.
“Some of the major compoents of the shiroro hydroelectric power plant are also being rehabilitated thus reducing the plant by about 300mw.”
On the effort to strengthen the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), he said the company had also taken advantage of additional funding sourced from multilateral agencies to expedite the urgently needed repair work.
“The impact of all these ongoing works upon completion during the year would be improved service delivery in the entire value chain.”
To surmount the incessant constrain of gas supplies, he disclosed that additional 295mscf of gas would be available by June 2014 and another 370 mscf by the end of the year.
“In order to actualize the generation targets provided in the strategic plan for the power sector, President GoodluckEbeleJonathan, has recently approved the reconstitution of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Gas to Power. The Committee would be charged with responsibility of identifying and ensuring that all the enablers and interventions required to deliver adequate power to the nation’s power plants are delivered on time.
“The Committee would also align the projections of generation capacity with the required projects, investments and other conditions precedent required to deliver the necessary quality and quantity of gas.”
He also emphasized that security of pipelines was already receiving the attention of the government, with announcing $1billion towards addressing the challenge of vandalisation of pipelines and theft of crude oil.
“I am confident that the strategies being proffered by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the IOCs and other security agencies would significantly curtail such occurrences.”
