NDPHC, Lagos partner to evacuate stranded power in Oke-Aro sub-station

Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited (NDPHC), and the Lagos State Government have announced plans to evacuate stranded power stuck in Oke Aro Power Sub-station, in a bid to increase power supply to the State.

According to the Managing Director, NDPHC, Chiedu Ugbo, the project will improve power supply by additional 300 Megawatts (MW) to the national grid, even as he decried a situation whereby the available power does not get to the end-users or final consumers.

Ugbo said the sub-station is currently grossly underutilised, explaining that NDPHC is seriously working with the Lagos State Government to ensure that the power is being evacuated for further distribution to end users. Ugbo stated this at a facility tour to the Oke-Aro Power sub-station, accompanied by the Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources, Lagos State, Olalere Odusote.

He said: “After the site visit, I’m sure the Commissioner has seen and he is convinced that energy here is stranded as a matter of fact because as we have seen that we have seven feeders going out of here that should have taken at least 100MW, but the feeders between the two distribution companies (Ibadan and Ikeja Discos) are doing less than 30MW.

“All these transmission lines are all in service, but we are concerned that they are not in full service. We have electricity to serve Nigerians, but they are stranded whether at the power stations or transmission sub-stations like this because at the distribution end; there are issues where people are not being served, so the distribution cannot pick the load from here.

“This is our concern, and we are collaborating seriously with the Lagos State Government to see how we can make sure that this available electricity gets to end users.“As part of the designs of this project, we have a 132Kv transmission line that is taking off from here to Alausa, and that project has been on, but we have serious challenges where we have enlisted the support of the Lagos State, and they are actively trying to support us to address these challenges.

“The Lagos State has a programme where they needed to see the availability of power here to ensure it gets to the consumers in Lagos within their territory. We have energy here stranded as a matter of fact. We have seven feeders going out of here that should be taking at least 100MW, but the feeders between the two distribution companies are doing less than 30MW. We are working with the Lagos State government to address the challenge,” he stressed.

Also speaking, the Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources, Olalere Odusote, said the Oke-Aro sub-station has the capacity to supply more power to Lagos State, saying that discussions are ongoing with Discos to evacuate power from the sub-station to Lagos.

“What I found here is that there is capacity to be able to supply more power to Lagos State. There is about 500 Mega Watts available to be evacuated out of which we have got a 100 Mega Watts capacity of transformers that is actually going out, and out of that 100 Mega Watts, about 60 Mega Watts come to Lagos. We can do a lot more than that and from the discussions with the Discos in Lagos, and from the interventions that we are trying to carry out; we realise that we need the power to come from here to come to Lagos,” he said.

The Commissioner added that its Light Up Lagos programme certainly depends on power being available on the grid, saying that the interventions with the Discos will not amount to much if there is no supply.

“So we expect that engagements and interactions with NDPHC will be able to do more for Lagos. The challenge that they have explained to us is one of getting a right of way of building a transmission line to Lagos, and we have been engaging with them and till date, we do not think that there are any more issues on the Lagos State Government side. Also, we are certainly working with them to engage with the Ogun State Government to clear the right of way issues, we hear that is hindering the transmission lines from being built to Alausa,” he added.