Babatunde Fashola, Nigeria’s Power Minister, says commitment to incremental power supply in the country of 180 million people is unwavering, as available capacity of hydro and gas power stations grew by 405 Megawatts (MW) in September 2016 to 2,885 MW from 2,480MW exactly a year ago.
This is the highest in at least three years (year-on-year), after capacity stood at 2,040MW in September 2013, as well as 2,400MW in 2014 and 2,480MW in 2015; industry data obtained by BusinessDay show.
Fashola who is also the Minister for Works and Housing, attributed the gains to repair and maintenance work at power stations, which had triggered quick wins amid high rainfall.
“All those have been fixed,” he said in an exclusive interview with BusinessDay, referring to damages at the Jebba, Kainji, and Shiroro hydro power stations, which saw available capacity slide considerably. “And we will get more because there is still work going on to expand to fully installed capacity.”
“All those have been fixed,” he said in an exclusive interview with BusinessDay, referring to damages at the Jebba, Kainji, and Shiroro hydro power stations, which saw available capacity slide considerably. “And we will get more because there is still work going on to expand to fully installed capacity.”
The Hydro Power Stations recorded an increase of 165 MW to 1,405MW in September 2016 from 1,240 a year ago.
The Shiroro Power Station in Niger State saw capacity jump 33 percent to 600MW (year-on-year) in the period, from September 2015.
The Shiroro Power Station in Niger State saw capacity jump 33 percent to 600MW (year-on-year) in the period, from September 2015.
Kainji’s capacity is put at 355MW from 340MW a year earlier, while the Jebba station remains unchanged at 450MW.
The gas power station saw capacity rise 240MW to 1,480 in the period, from 1,240 as at September 2015.
Available capacity from the gas power stations is 1,480MW from 1,240MW in 2015, as the Egbin and Delta stations recorded an increase of 25 percent and 5 percent to 1,100MW and 380MW respectively.
Egbin’s capacity was 880MW in September 2015, while Delta’s was 360MW.
“All of them were running at half and below half capacity on poor maintenance,” Fashola said.
The gas power station saw capacity rise 240MW to 1,480 in the period, from 1,240 as at September 2015.
Available capacity from the gas power stations is 1,480MW from 1,240MW in 2015, as the Egbin and Delta stations recorded an increase of 25 percent and 5 percent to 1,100MW and 380MW respectively.
Egbin’s capacity was 880MW in September 2015, while Delta’s was 360MW.
“All of them were running at half and below half capacity on poor maintenance,” Fashola said.
The increase in capacity of the hydro stations represents the highest in at least three years, as total capacity from the three Hydro plants was 930MW in 2013. Same applies with the gas stations whose combined capacity stood at 1,110 in 2013.
A survey on households and businesses show that there has been improved power supply in the last six weeks.
Studies however show power supply picks up amid regular rainfall as the water reservoir of hydro stations rise significantly, equating to more energy to drive the turbines.
Fashola said “Even if you had this rainfall, we won’t have the stable power supply that we are getting now if we didn’t scale up capacity at the power stations.” He adds that, “Nigerians should still hold their breath; we are not where we want to be because by early next year, if we don’t ramp up power from other sources, the water levels will go down and we will have power reduction.”
Nigeria is in need of “stable baseload power,” analysts say. Despite being three times the size of South Africa, it has only 20 percent of the generation capacity of Africa’s newly crowned largest economy.
Nigeria is in need of “stable baseload power,” analysts say. Despite being three times the size of South Africa, it has only 20 percent of the generation capacity of Africa’s newly crowned largest economy.
The nation, which has about 180 million people, generated an average of 2,464 megawatts of electricity in June, the Power Ministry said. South Africa has capacity to generate more than 40,000 megawatts.
Electricity production peaked in August at almost 5,000MW; however the sabotage of gas pipelines erased those gains, clouding short term prospects of meeting the estimated 12,800MW demanded by local users in the country.
The minister had revealed plans of creating more power plants that would enable the Federal Government to use coal, hydro-power plants and solar energy to complement what was lost to the activities of pipelines vandals.
In an update of how this was coming along, the minister told BusinessDay that “We are working now with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to finance an expansion of their capacity by doing 300MW each of solar, to diversify the country’s power mix.”
Fashola also said the ministry was talking to some investors interested in building coal fired power plants in the country.
“The problem we have is that we can’t close on the tariff. This is because there is no transportation facility for the coal, and so the cost of transporting the coal, they have built into their capital expenditure. By the time we are looking at the tariff, we can’t pass it on to consumers,” he said.
“All of these are going on simultaneously. All of these fall into our incremental power,” Fashola added.
LOLADE AKINMURELE
