MEDIATRACNET
The new Lafia power transmission substation would soon become Nigeria’s transmission hub with back feed capacity to Abuja and environs, the Managing Director of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited (NDPHC), Chiedu Ugbo has said.
Ugbo who spoke at the Substation in Lafia said the facility would boost electricity supply to at least one million households and businesses in Nasarawa State and environs, including Abuja.
Nasarawa state is part of the captive areas under the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) franchise area. The other areas are Niger, Kogi and the Federal Capital Territory.
The new 2X150MVA and 2x60MVA 330/132/33KV transmission substation built by the NDPHC was commissioned by President Muhammadu Buhari, recently.
Ugbo said that before the substation was built, Lafia was served by a single 70Km electricity distribution line from Akwanga, adding that with a lot of connections on the way, the power that eventually got to Lafia was very dim.
“So there was no useful electricity in Lafia and its environs”, he added.
He said the three-in-one project, which took five years to build, has six feeders that would serve at least one million households and businesses in the state and environs.
“We expect the project to improve the well-being of every resident of Lafia and entire Nasarawa State and improve economic activities, creation of jobs in the and beyond
“Also because of the big nature of the project, we expect it to become the transmission hub in the country. TCN is already working on the connection. A 330KV connection from here to Abuja, to back feed Abuja”, he said.
NDPHC, he said, decided to build this Lafia Substation essentially to step down down electricity from the high voltage transmission line to a lower voltage level where the distribution company (Abuja DISCo) could now draw electricity and serve close to one million households and businesses in the state.
The station, he said, would therefore help boost economic activities in the state, with positive knock-on effects on employment and socio-economic upliftment of the residents of the State.
On the project, the Executive Director, Networks, NDPHC, Ifeoluwa Oyedele said that though the company was primarily a power generation firm, it has had to execute intervention projects in transmission and distribution ends, to ensure that power supply to Nigerians improved.
“In the last 15 years, NDPHC has built 10 power stations. That is our main focus. However, we do realise that when you generate power, it has to get ultimately to the consumers. That is why we have been intervening in constructing transmission substations, injection substations and so on.
“This is because no organisation can do what we do, with the speed that we do it, with the quality that we do and at the cost that we do it. We are arguably the largest power company in Africa”, he added.
