Symbion Power, one of the leading private sector partners in President Barack Obama’s Power Africa initiative, has joined forces with Jyoti Americas, a global leader in the execution of turnkey power projects, and Iroko Capital Partners, a Nigerian alternative asset manager and financial advisory firm, to establish Nigeria’s first full service transmission solutions company, Western Sahara Transmission Company Ltd.
This was jointly announced yesterday by the partner companies.
Western Sahara will build Nigeria’s first state-of-the-art transmission tower manufacturing facility, with capacity to produce 50,000 tonnes of galvanised steel lattice transmission towers per year, which will displace the nation’s current reliance on expensive imports.
The company will be engaged in the entire power delivery value chain (including design, engineering, tower testing, tower manufacturing and construction) and will be fully equipped to handle transmission and distribution projects of any scale.
“Western Sahara is an indigenous company backed by experienced international players and will be primarily managed and staffed by Nigerians,” William Olukoya, Symbion deputy chief executive officer, told journalists in Lagos, Wednesday.
The transmission subsector of the power industry has been the weakest link and has been responsible for lack of power transmission to various locations across the country because of the obsolete nature of the infrastructure on ground.
Much of the power generated by the power plants cannot be evacuated because the transmission lines are too old to carry it through, resulting in serious power outages in the city centres. About 11 percent of the power generated in Nigeria is lost to transmission infrastructure defects, deficits and limited grid.
A report by the Oxford Business Group (OBG) in 2013 on Nigeria’s power sector said there was an urgent need to tackle the problem in order to enjoy the expected gains from the privatisation of the sector.
“Capacity for transmission was between 4,500 megawatts and 5,000MW as of mid-2013. Ideally, transmission capacity will outpace generation capacity, with the initial goals to increase the former to 6,000MW by the end of 2014,” the report said.
“Loss rates are at about 11 percent, according to NERC, and the target is to reduce that figure to between 5 percent and 7 percent,” it said.
The total power generated in the country was 3,291.8MW as at March 18 this year and the report said the implication was that 11 percent of the generated power must have been lost due to weak grid, according to OBG, which added that the grid was in bad shape but declined to give details of the condition.
The report put the quantum of power being lost at 1,761MW. It identified weak power transmission and inadequate gas supply as two critical issues that required urgent attention, saying if the problems were not fixed, they could derail the high expectations of the government, consumers and other stakeholders in the private sector-driven power sector.
All the 10 power generation stations formerly owned by the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) had a combined available capacity of 2,074MW as of September 2012. While the total installed capacity in the country remains 6,976.40 MW, the actual power generation has always revolved around 3,500MW.
Chinedu Nebo, minister of power, at the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) last week, said the country’s power generation capacity would hit 10,000MW by 2015.
Nebo said the problem of inadequate gas supply, occasioned by pipelines vandalism, was being addressed and that before the end of the year Nigerians would begin to enjoy improved electricity supply.
The minister added that government was working on the reduction of timelines from five years to two-and-a-half years for the successor companies of PHCN to get listed on the capital market, saying this would enable them have access to financing required to upgrade power infrastructure and also give some Nigerians a sense of belonging as they would become co-owners in the quoted companies.
It is estimated that about $3.4 billion would be required to bring the capacity of electricity transmission in the country up to date by 2016.
Olusola Bello
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