President Muhammadu Buhari has said that his administration will give the fullest possible attention to boosting power supply in Nigeria because it was convinced that steady electricity will launch the country into faster socio-economic development.
He said after receiving briefing from the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Power, Ambassador Godknows Igali, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Wednesday, that his administration had already identified the critical problems in Nigeria’s power sector and was taking appropriate actions to address them.
The president said that his administration had also prioritized certain measures in its action plan to boost electricity supply in Nigeria.
He said: “The problems besetting our power sector are not difficult to identify. Therefore, priorities can be easily set in order to tackle them.
“The problems are more with transmission than generation, and we equally need to secure the power infrastructure round the country. We will address all these issues.”
Ambassador Igali told the president that power generation in Nigeria, which was 1,750 MW in 1999, had now peaked at 4,600 MW.
He added that gas was available to take generation to 5,500 MW in a short time, but that the country needed to expand its electricity infrastructure to accommodate additional power generation.
Meanwhile, the management of Egbin power Plant has attributed adequate power supply across the country to sustained power generation of 1,100 megawatts (MW) by its plants, representing a quarter of total power generation across the country.
The country’s total power output currently stands at 4400MW and the stable power supply is attributable to increased power generation from generation companies, including Egbin Power Plant.
In a chat with the Nigerian Tribune on Wednesday, the Chief Executive Officer, Egbin Power Plc, Mr Dallas Peavey, stated that massive investment by the management in the power plants boosted the capacity to 1,100MW in July and it has been sustained till date.
Following the handing over of the power plant to new owners, after privatisation exercise in September, 2013, Sahara Group and its technical partners, the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), have invested several billions of naira to upgrade the facilities from 520MW capacity to 1100MW capacity while the installed capacity of the plants remained 1320MW.
Peavey stated that indigenous engineers were being used with the supervision of its technical partners to revive the six units of the 1320MW plants.
When completely overhauled, the plant is expected to operate at full capacity translating into more stable power supply to Nigerians.
Peavey posited said the transformation in Egbin commenced after “after the injection of about N50billion fresh investment into Egbin post privatization the Sahara Power/KEPCO partnership has brought to the power plant, an unprecedented level of innovation, professionalism, human capital development and continuing investment in new technology.
“The control room panels, installed at the plant’s inception have been upgraded to state-of-the-art digital panels. The highlight of the main plant rehabilitation occurred in the first quarter of 2015, when the company successfully rehabilitated ST-Unit 6, bringing an additional 220MW to the national grid and restoring the power plant to its installed capacity of 1320MW,” he said.
“With these developments, Egbin Power Plc is now equipped to generate power at its installed 1,320MW capacity, while the company is exploring expansion in power generation in a few years’ time to 2670MW and possibly, 10,000MW in the next decade, if gas supply, transmission expansion and demand permits,” Peavey said.
On capacity development, Peavey explained that in 2014, 107 young Nigerian graduate engineers were recruited into the Graduate Engineering Program (GEP), a fasttrack manpower and developmental programme for high potential individuals.
“In the true spirit of national development, the engineers were sent to the National Power Training Institute of Nigeria (NAPTIN) for a year training under the Graduate Skills Development Programme. They have since graduated and we are excited to receive them to contribute their quota in strengthening the sector,” he added.
Post-privatisation, Egbin Power remains the only power facility that provides over 150MW of spinning reserve, Grid System Frequency and Voltage Ampere Reactive (VAR) Power control which provides the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) with means to balance supply across Nigeria.
