The planned $1.61 billion power transmission expansion project is under threat occasioned by acute shortage of gas for power, which shut-in a total of 29,219 megawatts of electricity on the national grid between October 1 and 17, 2019.
Managing Director, Transmission Company of Nigeria, Alhaji Usman Gur, earlier said that government in collaboration with international donor agencies had set aside over $1.61 billion under the Transmission Rehabilitation Expansion Programme to ensure constant power supply in the country.
“We are rehabilitating and expanding to 20, 000 megawatts by 2022 across the country,” he declared, adding that “the total amount that we are going to pay for compensation across the country is about N32 billion. And the total project cost is $1.61 billion. The project will be supported by various international donors.”
Checks at the weekend, however, revealed that gas supply challenge, one of the major factors inhibiting the generation of electricity in Nigeria, particularly from thermal power generation plants, is posing a major hindrance to the success of the project.
Over 70 per cent of Nigeria’s electricity comes from thermal power plants, and these plants require gas to function optimally in generation of electricity.
The limited gas supply to gas-fired power generation stations in October alone, checks showed, stalled the generation of over 29,000MW of electricity in the first 17 days of the month.
Corroborating this stand, the Executive Secretary, Association of Power Generation Companies, the umbrella body for Gencos, Joy Ogaji, stated that gas supply challenges were due to the inability of Gencos to adequately pay for the commodity.
She explained that there was no incentive for power generators to increase output from their plants.
The Gencos said their total generation capacity rose to 7,383.04MW in 2018 from 4,214.32MW in 2013, when the power sector was privatised by the Federal Government.
Ogaji also noted that the limitation of transmission and distribution networks coupled with lack of payments to Gencos was a drag on increased generation.
She said: “From 2013, the power taken did not change at all. It was just hovering around 3,000MW until it rose to 4,000MW in some days, out of over 7,000MW of available generation capacity. And who pays for the difference?”
Latest figures obtained from the Advisory Power Team in the Office of the Vice President showed that from the first day of this month, the country kept losing power due to gas supply challenges.
Specifically, from October 1to 6, the unavailability of gas supply to thermal power plants stalled the generation of 2,157.5MW, 2,031MW, 2,238MW, 2,073MW, 1,878MW and 1,878MW, respectively.
Also from October 7 to 12, the quantum of power that could not be generated on the grid as a result of gas supply challenges was 1,626MW, 1,846MW, 1,846MW, 1,635.5MW, 1,762MW, and 1,862MW, respectively.
For October 13 to 17, gas unavailability stopped the generation of 1,726MW, 1,635.5MW, 1,677.5MW, 1,551MW and 1,674MW, respectively. Meanwhile, the Gencos spokesperson maintained that the non-payment for generated energy was hampering the ability of Gencos to pay for gas, which was why a large volume of power was stalled from being generated daily.
The power sector has also been losing billions of naira as a result gas supply constraint, among others.
Between January and September this year, the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry lost an estimated N472.23 billion.
The daily reports of the country’s power sector performance showed that the industry had been losing between N1.5 billion and N2 billion every day.
In the reports put together by the APT team, it was stated that from January 2019 to 11.51pm on September 10, the sector recorded a revenue loss of N472.23 billion, while a total of 3,236 megawatts-hour/hour of energy was constrained during this period.
- Media Report