Igali Says Power Supply Now 4,600MW, Urges Buhari To Tackle Vandalism

Godknows Boladei Igali, Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Power

Ambassador Godknows Igali, the Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Power, said on Wednesday that electicity supply nationwide had reached 4,600 megawatts. Igali told State House correspondents after briefing President Muhammadu Buhari on the current state of power situation in the country, that the volume was a great improvement in the sector. According to him, electricity supply is one of the most discussed topics in Nigeria and naturally so because it is fundamental to the country’s social and economic development.

News Agency of Nigeria report continues:

“Where we stand is that we are doing over 4,600MW of power on the grid and we can do better but then this is a big improvement from about 3,000MW.

“The other time we attained 4,000MW but because of pipeline disruptions we go down to 2,000MW, we go down to 3,000MW.

“But consistently in the past two months also we have been over 4,500mw, now we are reaching close to 4,700MW.

“We briefed him on that and what effort we are doing is to improve on that figure’’, he said.

Igali said that distribution remained a challenge because it was where the consumers felt the impact of power supply most.

He, however, said the ministry was tracking a lot of distribution companies (DISCOs) very well to make sure that what was needed at the distribution level was achieved.

“They must improve on their network; they must improve on the availability of transformers and on the supply of meters because Nigerians are tired of estimated billing,’’ he said.

The permanent secretary said that the National Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC) had sometimes fined the DISCOs to enable them to carry out their responsibilities to the customers as required.

He said the ministry was looking into the issue of estimated billing because of the concerns of consumers, adding that very soon NERC would come out with a position.

Igali said the ministry would also brief the Senate on how the process or the value chain of the power supply operate.

“The fact is that electricity supply is mostly in the hands of the private sector. This means that the private sector people must bring in copious investments into the sector.

“If they must bring investments, it also means that they must earn revenue.

“If power supply situation must improve, especially at the distribution level, they must provide transformers, they must provide switch gears, they must provide meters; all these are investments.”

According to him, while a single phase meter costs about N18,000 while a three-phase costs about N35,000, the ministry did not expect the consumers to pay for them.

“The DISCOs are supposed to provide these meters and if you are looking at a town of about 100,000 people or 200,000 and more talk less of a city of one million or two million who do have meters that is a whole lot of money,’’ he said.

Igali said that payment for power was necessary for the smooth operations of the sector.

He, however, observed that the nation had a very sad situation ”where Nigeria is one of the highest in electricity theft in the world.

“A lot of people don’t pay for electricity.’’

According to him, the few Nigerians who pay end up subsidizing the millions of people who don’t pay but still enjoy the free electricity.

He also explained that those who were given high estimated billing also subsidized those given low estimated billing, adding that those were the issues in every post-privatization exercise everywhere in the world.

Igali said he was happy that Nigerians had acknowledged the improvement in power supply and expressed the hope that the problems associated with the distribution would be addressed.

The permanent Secretary said that President Buhari gave the ministry a clear directive to work harder while acknowledging the improvement in supply.

He, however, said that the bane of power supply was vandalism which was discussed extensively at the briefing.

“While we are sleeping in the night, people go to blow up the Escravos line, the Forcados line and the Trans National line, and that has been taking us up and down. Now, there is stability for some months,’’ Igali said.

On the review of the privatization in the sector, the permanent secretary recalled that the President had said repeatedly that the exercise was being looked into to improve on what had been done. (NAN)

Nigeria Requires 10,844MW To Close Demand Gap

National Mirror reports the Federal Government needs additional 10,844 megawatts, mw of electric­ity to meet domestic demand. The latest report of the Presi­dential Task Force on Power showed that the nation currently generates 3,785.74MW of power. This showed that it needs to generate additional 10,844MW in order to meet the nation’s estimat­ed 14,630mw.

Investigations showed that the shortfall would not likely be gener­ated in a short and medium term because of many challenges, espe­cially inadequate funding.

Meanwhile, NERC has issued an Order imposing financial pen­alties on any electricity distribu­tion company that rejects elec­tricity allotted it by the System Operators (SO).

Order number NERC 139 en­titled “Order on the Imbalance Ap­plication Mechanism during the Transitional Electricity Market” was issued on account of high in­cidence of non-compliance with load allocation formular by distri­bution companies who reject loads allotted them by the SO.

Nigerian Electricity Supply In­dustry, NESI operates on the ba­sis of a sharing formula approved by NERC, which the SO uses to allocate generated electricity to the distribution companies (DIS­COs), many of which are lately rejecting allocation.

Rejection of load allocation besides causing imbalance in the system is preventing electric­ity consumers from realising the maximum benefit of the recent increase in the electricity gen­eration. Electricity generation in the country about two weeks ago notched 4,600 megawatts thresh­old.

NERC in the Order indicated, “Where a distribution company has a constraint on its network that will make it unable to receive load, the DISCO shall declare such constraint to the SO a day ahead. Where a DISCO fails to give the required notice, it will be penalised.”

“Every DISCO is obligated to receive load as directed by the SO, even beyond its statutorily al­located load at any time. This ad­ditional load will not attract pen­alty. In allocating additional load to distribution companies, the SO shall take cognisance of historical data on Distribution Company’s ability to take power beyond their location.”

The Transmission Company of Nigeria will be sanctioned if re­jection of load allocation is caused by constraint in the transmission network.

The Commission’s Chairman, Dr. Sam Amadi said it was aimed at eliminating imbalance and make Nigerians have maximum impact of the improvement in the generating capacity and to also incentivise operators to invest in their network to take more power.

Amadi said most of the distri­bution and the transition compa­nies have been using inadequacy of electricity supply as an excuse not to strengthen their networks and “the new threshold of power generation has exposed this weak­ness in their networks and we (NERC) have that responsibility to force them to invest in their net­works.”