The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has insisted that the country generated 5,000 megawatts of electricity on February 7,2019 but that the challenges of distribution companies did not allow the impact of the improvement to be felt by Nigerians .
TCN also stated that it has the capacity to wheel 8,000 megawatts of electricity currently but that it is handicapped by the challenges facing distribution companies.
Ndidi Mba , general manager, public affairs TCN told BusinessDay that her organisation is in the best position to know what was generated in the country at any particular time by the various generating companies. “All of them send what they generate to TCN individually. We collate these figures and add them up. So now you see that we know what we are saying”.
Stakeholders have questioned the essence of TCN celebrating the transmission of 5,375mw that lasted just a few minutes.
TCN transmitted a peak generation of 5,375MW on the 7th of February 2019 which was regarded as peak generation for that day. Peak generation is actually the generation for a particular day to meet maximum demand for the day, which is usually for a couple of minutes and not for the whole day. Over a day, load demand and utilisation change on a second by second basis, an industry operator said.
The nation has the capacity to generate 13,000 megawatts.
Average available generation capacity has been on the average 8,000 megawatts daily.
But Load approved for daily distribution has been between 3,700 megawatts – 4, 800 megawatts and on very rare occasions 5,000mw.
The limitation or inability to go beyond these thresholds are linked to the dynamics of Tariff Shortfalls ; Market Shortfalls ; Market Settlement Crises which borders on Low Market Remittances of between 25% – 30% attributed to the foregoing.
She however lamented that distribution companies are the weakest link in the power value chain, as either they are not able to take the load because of infrastructural problems or they out rightly reject the supply meant for them because they fear they may not be able to make available the monetary value of electricity they take to the market operator.
According to her, TCN will continue to improve on the infrastructure on ground so that more electricity can be wheeled to stakeholders for the benefit of all.
“We will continue to increase the capacity of transmission which is what the agency has been doing for some time now”, she said.
Meanwhile, in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s policy on incremental power,TCN has completed the installation and commissioning into service of one brand new 300MVA 330/132/33kV power transformer in its Alaoji Transmission Substation and has also successfully transported a brand new 150MVA, 330/132/33kV power transformer from the port to Kumbotso Transmission Substation in Kano, to replace one of the four (4) 150MVA transformers taken out for repairs.
The brand new 300MVA power transformer, energised on February 12th, 2019 in its Alaoji Transmission Substation, has increased the station’s installed capacity from 450MVA to 750MVA which makes it the biggest substation in the southern part of the country and has also made the station consistent with redundancy requirement of N-1.
With this development, TCN has increased its capacity to supply Enugu Distribution Company for onward supply to particularly Abia North (Ohafia, Arochukwu, Item, Abriba) Imo State (Okigwe, Arondi-izuogu), parts of Ebonyi and Rivers State.
TCN further stated that the following projects under construction will also benefit from the newly energised 300MVA transformer; 4No 132kV substations at Okigwe (Imo state), Mbalano, Ohafia and Arochukwu (Abia State) which are awaiting completion. The newly energised 300MVA transformer will also enhance evacuation of power generated into the 132kV grid network from the Alaoji NIPP and Afam Power Stations. The installation of the transformer was carried out by Messrs Power Control with active support of TCN.
Olusola Bello