Egbin Power Plc says it is targeting 10,000 megawatts (MW) even as it said it has invested N50 billion to reha¬bilitate one of the six steam turbine units which now has the capacity to gener¬ate 220MW. This capacity would be doubled in 2016, according to a source in the company.
The company wants to keep doubling the capacity of the various units until it is able to achieve 10,000 megawatts in about a dec¬ade from now.
The plant has a capacity to generate 1320 megawatts currently if it gets enough gas to fire it.
Chinedu Nebo, minister of power, in an interaction with journalists in Lagos, commended the efforts of the investors and said the venture would not have been possible if not for pri¬vatisation.
Read also: Egbin Power boosts national grid with additional 220MW
He said: “Egbin spent N50 billion to get things to this level. The entire budget of the Federal Government for all the Gencos and Dis¬cos would not have been up to that before privatisa¬tion. This is a bold venture by a private sector-owned power.
“This work by Egbin Power Plc is very com¬mendable. If you think of what it costs to bring a brand new 220MW to frui¬tion you then know Egbin has done marvelously well in trying to regain capacity that was lost several years ago”, he said. The minster also said that the unit has been out of operation for more than 10 years as the government did not have the money to put it back to production. “It has been out of operation for 10 years. Since then it has been mori¬bund and has not given a single megawatt. But then the government having owned the facility for so long did not have the mon¬ey to revamp it,” he said.
According to Nebo, “The Federal Government could not have mustered the kind of money used to put the fa-cility into use for one power plant. So, it is kudos for the Federal Government for privatising the sector. This 220MW is just the begin¬ning for Egbin. Egbin has committed to even dou¬bling their capacity”.
He said currently, Egbin is the largest power plant in Nigeria. It has capacity for generating over 1,300MW. They are working hard to make sure that it is even doubled by 2016.
