Fashola

 

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, on Wednesday laid blame on obsolete equipments as the reason distribution companies (Discos) rejected over 9,000 megawatts of electricity within one week recently.

He said that power generation has grown from 2,690 megawatts in 2015 to 6,800 this August, noting that there is a problem with distribution caused by the inability of Discos to upgrade their equipment to the level of the generation being made.

According to him, an average of 4,000 megawatts of power are not accepted regularly, due to the weak capacity of the equipment being used by the Discos.

He said that some of the equipment acquired by the Discos upon privatisation have become antiquated and obsolete and hence, require being upgraded if they would be able to absorb and distribute the existing megawatts of electricity.

The Minister said that the government was committed to guaranteeing stable power supply, pointing out that the power sector reform of the federal government would address that problem.

He said, “On the rejection of 9,000 megawatt of power, I have not read the report. As at the beginning of the 10th August this year, the amount of power that was available to be delivered to the grid was 6,800 plus megawatts. So what that means is that from 2,690 in 2015 when this government was inaugurated, we have demonstrated that we can grow.

“We have overcome the gas challenges and the vandals and pipeline repairs have progressed and that has impacted success on the generation side. Our power is going to come from different sources, hydro, gas, solar and that is why we are investing in mambilla for more hydro so that when one source is vulnerable we can rely on another’s source.

“But in addition to power increase in terms of production, the transmission capacity has also increase, it has moved from the proverbial 5,000 to 6,700 megawatt that we can will. But the problem now is at the distribution end. For the kind of sustainable power we all want to see, it means every part of the value chain must work. And that is why I will continue to say that as we demonstrate our ability on generation and transmission we will demonstrate the same on our distribution.

“So what we are now putting on the grid because the Discos can’t take the power is roughly about 2,000 megawatt so there is 4,000 plus averagely that is not being taken. So if you calculate for three days or five days, that your submission on 9,000 is probably not correct.” he said

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