Govt moves against sub-standard electricity equipment

IT will definitely no longer be business as usual for the promoters of fake and sub-standard electricity equipment in the country as the Federal Government took a bold step to curtail the menace in the sector.

 The Minister of State for Power, Mohammed Wakil, made this known at the official launching of a re-modeled National Meter Test Station (NMTS) and the Technical Inspectorate Services Field Office, at Oshodi, Lagos on Wednesday.

   Wakil said: “All categories of electricity installations, power system and networks must be properly planned, designed and executed before use. Gone are those days of sub-standard equipment and installations, which compromised safety of Nigerians.

  “More pointedly, manufacturers of fake power equipment are hereby put on notice. The long arm of law shall catch up with those endangering lives of innocent citizens. Nigerians do not only want adequate power supply, they also need safety and reliability,” he said.

   According to him, the importance of safety and quality control informed the establishment of the Electricity Management Services Limited (EMSL), to provide technical support services of enforcement of technical standards, safety and specifications in the sector.

  These technical support, he said have saved stakeholders millions of naira arising from frequent replacement of bad and faulty meters, electrical materials and equipment.

The Managing Director, EMSL, Peter Ewesor, said the mandate of the company stipulates that no electrical installation or network can be put into use in Nigerian unless it has been tested and certified fit for use by its technical officers.

   In view of this, he said the meter test station would undertake type test, routine test, calibration and certification of meters and instruments before they can be deployed or used in the power sector value chain and other allied industries.

    He said the NMTS has the capacity to test, calibrate and certify over 1000 meters per shift of eight hours per day.

  The NMTS are located in Lagos, Kaduna and Port Harcourt, but he said the Oshodi facility was chosen to be modernized first due to the large volume of business in Lagos.

 Ewesor said the facility has already recorded some operations, which included the rejection of over 10,000 sub-standard meters for not having anti-energy-theft protection, which would have resulted into high commercial and collection losses for the investors.

  Also, he said the agency has rejected over 5000 meters that were having terminal connections that were out of specification, as well as detected over 15000 meters that were not manufactured in accordance with the specifications in the Nigerian metering codes as it relates to tropicalisation, voltage, current and load burden, among others.