150MW will be added to national grid by year-end — Minister

Adebayo Adelabu, Minister of Power

The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, announced on Thursday that Nigeria is set to add an additional 150 megawatts (MW) to its national grid before the end of 2024.

Adelabu disclosed the development during a press briefing at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, after a meeting with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and President Bola Tinubu.

He noted the upgrade will be made due to the successful completion of the pilot phase of the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI).

“We have completed the pilot phase of this project, up to 80%. This involves the importation, installation, and commissioning of 10 power transformers and 10 powermobile substations. They’ve been imported. They’ve been installed, and lots of them have been commissioned. We have just about two left to be commissioned before the end of the year,” Adelabu said.
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“The positive impact of this is that it has added nothing less than 750 megawatts to our transmission grid capacity, which is why the relative stability that we are seeing in the grid today is the direct positive impact of the pilot stage completion. ⁣

“So, we believe that before the end of the year, an additional 150 megawatts capacity is going to be added upon completion of the entire pilot phase.”

The announcement comes as the country continues to struggle with a poor power infrastructure that has experienced 12 grid failures this year.

This year’s first major collapse occurred on February 4, when grid capacity fell from 2,407 MW to just 31 MW before reaching zero.

Other collapsed incidents happened on August 5, October 14, October 15, and October 19.

Adelabu noted these challenges and described the grid as ‘fragile’ and ‘dilapidating’ but assured that Nigerians will have a better experience going forward.

“When we are done with the Phase One project in the transmission, the entire grid will not remain the same, and that’s why we are telling Nigerians that this is a very old grid. It’s quite fragile and it’s dilapidating,” Adelabu said.
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“We need to revamp the entire grid for us to be sure of stability going forward.”