By Bassey Udo
The Federal Government has unfolded the framework for sustainable electricity supply, the Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu, has said.
The Minister who disclosed this at the end an emergency meeting in Abuja said the framework would help address the recent challenges in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI).
Last Monday, the national grid collapsed, throwing the entire nation into darkness, after losing about 1,100MW generation capacity.
The systems collapse followed several weeks of epileptic supply of electricity as a result of low power generation by the power generation companies.
The Minister blamed the loss of generation capacity to simultaneous disruptions in gas supply to the Okpai NIPP in Calabar and the Afam VI power plants innDelta State.
The low available generation capacity for wheeling by the Transmission Company of Nigeria to consumers, the Minister said, was exacerbated by the ongoing water management regime at the Kainji, Jebba and Shiroro power plants.
On the progress made so far to restore mormalcy in the electricity supply sysyem in the country, the Minister said the gas pipeline affected by several acts of vandalism has been restored.
Also, he said the Okpai power plant has since resumed power generation and currently contributing an average of 300MW.
Again, he said the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc has been directed to enter into fast-track negotiations with the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) on an interim energy sales agreement.
The agreement, the Minister said, was conceived with a view to bringing the new Okpai Il power plant on the national grid, to contribute additional 400MW of generation capacity for distribution to consumers.
The completion of the gas pipeline supplying gas to the Odukpani power plant, he said, was scheduled for completion on March 21, 2022, thus ramping up the overall generation capacity by about 400MW.
In order to optimise the capacity utilisation of the power plants owned by the Niger Delta Power Holding Company Ltd (NDPHC), the Minister said the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission has approved a special gas pricing regime for emergency contracting of gas from the Nigerian Gas Marketing Company Ltd.
“We expect an on-grid improvement of about 800MW generation capacity from the NDPHC plants,” the Minister said.
In the medium-term, he said tje government has agreed with NGPIC (…a subsidiary of NNPC) on the framework for the overhaul of the Okoloma gas processing plant, thereby restoring the full capacity of the 650MW Afam VI combined cycle power plant.
The Minister expressed regrets over the recent spate of systems collapse, saying it was a direct consequence of a snap on a 330kV transmission line.
“The mitigation measures for avoiding such incidence of blackouts are being implemented through several interventions, including the Presidential Power Initiative.
” We wish to reassure all electricity consumers that all relevant agencies involved in the restoration of normalcy in power supply have been charged to act in the context of the emergency state of the industry.
“The Federal Ministry of Power shall continue to periodically update the nation on the progress,” the Minister said
