Targets 6000mw By December

The Federal Government has assured that within the next two years, the issue of power grid collapse will be a thing of the past.

Nigeria has been facing frequent grid collapse that often throws the country into darkness.

The government also assured Nigerians that the country would be generating up to 6000 megawatts of electricity by December this year given the level of investments the government is making in the power sector.

The Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, while presenting his ministry’s scorecard at the Ministerial Sectoral press briefing to highlight the achievements of the ministry in the last one year, said the government was working in partnership with the World Bank and two other banks to deploy a technology that would control the voltage of the national grid.

His words: “The issue of the frequent collapse of the national grid will soon be a thing of the past. We have been on it and we have been trying our best to ensure that it does not continue.

“The permanent solution to grid collapse that we have discovered is to have an automated control of the voltage using a computer-based system for gathering and analysing real-time data to monitor and control equipment called Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA).

“We have been implementing this for the past 10 to 20 years and we have not been able to complete it. We have just got an intervention from the World Bank and two other banks working with the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and they have given us 24 months, that is two years, for us to conclude the SCADA implementation and I am very sure that once the World Bank is involved, it will go through successfully.”

The minister also disclosed that the President has given approval for the immediate payment of N130 billion from the Gas Stabilisation Fund, being part of the N1.3 trillion owed generation companies (GenCos).

He further explained that the payment of $1.3 billion legacy debts owed to gas producers would be sourced from future royalties and income streams in the gas sub-sector, noting that the gas-supplying companies accepted the solution.

The minister said going forward, the government has developed a framework that would make government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) pay their electricity bills through a single source to avoid the current situation where many of them are heavily indebted to the distribution companies.

Adelabu also said that the government would strictly monitor and ensure that the Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) and the banks that took over the management of DisCos over their indebtedness quickly find a core investor that would take over the companies.

He noted that it is an aberration for a non-power technical operator to manage power companies.

Earlier in his presentation, the minister justified the recent hike in electricity tariff, which he said was necessary to attract investment into the sector.

He noted that the pain and hardship the people are going through now is temporary, adding that within the next few years the situation would change for the better.