About 50 firms will secure licences for generation and distribution of electrical power before the end of 2015, Rumundaka Wonodi, the managing director of Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET), has said. He, however, said this number may not translate into stable electricity supply immediately but in the distant future it will.
To have stable electricity, the country will need to have 150,000 megawatts.The bulk trader has already signed new power purchase agreements (PPAs) with a number of power firms, which are now awaiting approval and issuance of licences in order for them to commence energy production operations. The power firms include ExxonMobil, Azura and Omak Power, among others.
“The number on the list of projects we are discussing with is 50. In coal, we have Zuma Energy, which is 1,200 megawatts somewhere in Kogi Sate and they will start with 300 first, that PPA should be signed in the next two months and it may not take that long,” Wonodi told BusinessDay in an exclusive interview.
“In gas, we have Azura, we have ExxonMobil, we have Preston, we have Century Power, and all of them are within a range of about 500 megawatts and we expect that all these will come to sign their PPAs hopefully by the end of this year (December),” the NBET boss further stated.
PPA by NBET is a compulsory hurdle and it is a process being used by the Nigerian electricity industry regulators to compel all licensees to be work-ready before they are granted approval.
NBET is incorporated under the Companies and Allied Matters Act, but remains a government entity that is a made up of statutory government officials and some independents. Its nine-man board is chaired by the minister of finance, and its other members include the power minister, the director general of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), its CEO and others that are independents.
