Power Generation: FG Targets 10,000MW by Fourth Quarter

The Federal Government yesterday said that it plans to grow Nigeria’s power generation capacity to 10,000MW by the fourth quarter of 2013.

In a presentation on the power sector made in Abuja to the Presidential Action Committee on Power (PACP), the Minister of State for Power, Hajiya Zainab Kuchi, said the government plans to achieve the 10,000MW target by diversifying Nigeria’s energy mix to include other renewable sources of energy.

She however did not give a breakdown on the amount of electricity that will be generated from the various renewable energy sources available to Nigeria. Nigeria currently generates and distributes 4,517.6MW of electricity, meaning that an extra 5,482.4MW would have to be generated to meet the 10,000MW target by the fourth quarter.

Power Generation Rises to 4,349.7MW

The Presidential Task Force on Power (PTFP) has said that the country’s power generation has increased to 4,349.7 megawatts (MW), adding that it was a peak all-time generation milestone in the country’s power sector.

Disclosing the new generation capacity which it announced despite increasing public distraught on the recent decline in electricity supply across the country, the chairman of PTFP, Mr. Beks Dagogo-Jack, explained in a statement from the Head, Media and Communications of PTFP, Mrs. Awele Okigbo, that the increase was occasioned by diligent management of power systems in the country by various managers in the sector.

Dagogo-Jack specifically singled out for commendation the new management contractor for Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Manitoba Hydro International (MHI) and Systems Operator in TCN.

He also attributed the new generation capacity to key developments in the sector such as the successful return of the Egbin Power Plant back to the national grid after a prolonged maintenance schedule, the final commencement of operation of the third gas turbine at the Omotosho National Integrated Power Projects (NIPPs) plant and restoration of gas supply from the Escravos gas plant belonging to Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL) on the western gas network to the Escravos-Lagos Pipeline System (ELPS ).

Lagos to generate 3000 Megawatts in 2 years

The Lagos State Government has unveiled its plan to achieve 3,000 megawatts of power generation, which it said, would be realized through its independent power projects (IPPs) before the end of the 2014 fiscal year.

Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources, Mr. Taofiq Tijani, said this at a recent event in Lagos. Tijani said the state government was hopeful that not less than 3,000 megawatts of electricity “will be generated in the next two years. With these and other IPPs still expected to come on stream before the end of the Babatunde Fashola led administration in 2015”.

The IPPs include the Akute Power Plant (12.15MW) at the Akute/Adiyan Waterworks in partnership with Oando Plc and Lagos Island Power Plant (270 MW) in collaboration with AES Nigeria, a subsidiary of AES USA. The Akute IPP is dedicated to powering the Akute Waterworks, one of the biggest sources of water supply to Lagos, while the Island IPP powers street lights and selected public institutions around the CMS area.

Power generation drops as five power plants shuts down

Five power plants have been shut due to gas shortage and technical hitches. The plants are in Sapele, Geregu, Omoku, Alaoji and Trans Amadi, Port Harcourt. The closure of the plants had made power generation to drop by at least 400 Megawatts.

The daily operational report of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria showed that the three units of the Sapele power plant were out due to condensate problem, while one unit is still in the pre-commissioning stage. For the Geregu power plant, all the three units were shut due to some technical problems. The shut-down of Omoku, it was learnt, was caused by collapsed towers on the Omoku/Port Harcourt 132kV line. The units in the River State Independent Power Plant at Trans Amadi, it was gathered, were shut down due to faults.

There had been fears that some of the National Integrated Power Projects recently completed by the Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited might not have gas to generate electricity. This is in spite of promises by the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation would increase gas supply to the power plants in the country between August and September under the gas emergency plan this year.