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The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu has described as shameful the fact that Nigeria’s electricity transmission and distribution capacity has remained stagnated at about 4000MW for several years.
Adelabu, who spoke during a parley with power correspondents in Abuja on Wednesday, stressed that the situation was not acceptable.
Adelabu stressed that no nation can grow its economy, industries or any sector without a reliable power sector, noting that countries that had grown significantly were those who identified electricity as the engine or driver of growth.
“For example, South Korea, with a 49 million population, generates and distributes 130,000 megawatts of power. So companies like Daewoo, Hyundai, LG and others are now giants of industry, having grown from one-shop companies that they were in the 1960s.
“Secondly, China with a 1.4 billion population generates and distributes 1.3 million megawatts of electricity.
“So when we say we are over 200 million people and what we generate and distribute on our national grid is just 4,000 megawatts, it is shameful; it is not acceptable. We must achieve better results,” the minister ordered.
FG to focus on alternate source of generation to improve power – Adelabu
The Minister of Power, meanwhile disclosed that the Federal Government plans to focus on an alternate source of generation to improve to power supply.
Speaking in Abuja on Wednesday while interacting with power correspondents, Adelabu said that the plan was to de-emphasise the national grid and focus on distributed power.
According to him, power can be generated and get down to the consumers without passing through the national grid, adding that the best way to do this is to look at alternate source of generation,
“We want to use small hydros, we have small dams that can generate between 500kilowatts down to five megawatts.
“So, we want to focus on that to generate power to identified locations embedded in the distribution network without passing through the transmission network because the capacity and stability of our transmission is still constrained, ‘’ he said.
The minister said that government was also looking at solar energy as there were a lot of investors that have given the country offers to invest in it.
Adelabu said that a lot of them were asking the government to give them Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) and evacuate it to the grid.
“No, it won’t happen now. Whoever wants to invest in solar power must identify who the off takers are; our focus should be on off grid power generation.
“We have proposals for offshore wind power in Nigeria, we have potential for this because we are a coastal country. We can have wind fans that we give us very clean power.
“That is what we want to do, why we concentrate on continuously improving the grid and expanding its capacity. We don’t want to wait we want to generate power and distribute to our people,” he said.
Adelabu said he has also ordered an investigation into the extension of the licences of Electricity Distribution Companies, otherwise known as DisCos by five years.
”When I came in, the licences I saw were for 10 years, 2013 to 2023. But along the line, I spoke to the NERC Chairman they said they have extended the licences for another five years,”he said.
According to Adelabu, the problem in the power sector was multi –dimensional and cut across the value-chain from generation to transmission to distribution.
He said that only one person cannot solve the problem of the sector, adding that all the stakeholders must be carried along to achieve the desired result.
“We are going to make an impact by turning the industry around and deliver improved power to the doorstep of households, businesses and industries, ” Adelabu said.
The minister said that desired results were not achieved in the sector because it has always been top to down approach, saying, ” that is from generation to transmission to distribution.”
Adelabu said that efforts had always been on establishing more power plants and getting power generated without so much emphasis on delivering channels.
“If our focus is on distribution, infrastructure improvement and a little of transmission and with the volume of power we generate, we are going to double the delivery to the doorstep of consumers.
“ So, what we want to adopt is a bottom up approach which is delivery focus, the little we generate, we are we able to get it to consumers. so we are starting from the customer end,”he said.
He also announced that Nigeria’s second-largest hydroelectric power station, the 700 megawatts capacity Zungeru Power Plant, was ready to begin operations before the end of November.
The power minister also disclosed that plans had been concluded to organise a Power Sector Retreat between December 12 and 14, 2023, which shall produce a workable roadmap for the sector.