The efforts of Geometric Power Limited, foremost integrated energy group in Nigeria, to provide constant power supply in Aba, the commercial hub of Abia State, and other Local Government Areas, under the Aba ring fence, is being frustrated by gas shortage, BusinessDaySunday has reliably gathered.
Currently, gas supply reliability is posing a challenge to the firm’s generation capacity and efficiency.
To address this, the management said that it was exploring alternative arrangements to secure backup supplies, to ensure a more reliable energy provision, even if current supply agreements face disruptions.
The firm expressed concerns over the severe shortage of natural gas supply to its 188-megawatt plant in the Osisioma Industrial Estate in Aba, Abia State, stating that it is hindering the state’s economic growth.
Recall that Bart Nnaji, a professor and chairman of Geometric Power Group, at the inauguration of the power plant on February 26, 2024, warned that lack of gas would be the only obstacle to providing constant power in the commercial city.
Ugo Opiegbe, managing director, Aba Power Limited Electric (APLE), an electricity distribution arm of Geometric Power Group, explained that the firm has been constrained to import 25 megawatts from the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) at a huge cost, just to ensure that its customers have supplies, no matter the cost to the company.
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Opiegbe said that it was a supreme irony that though the firm is ready to generate 141MW from its three General Electric (GE) turbines and provide uninterrupted, quality, and affordable electricity to nine of the 17 Local Government Areas in Abia State and export some 50MW potential excess power to the national grid, to make power more available to other places in Nigeria, but is still importing electricity, because of the grave gas constraints.
He noted that the Aba Ringfence needs about 90MW, which Geometric can generate from two of its installed three turbines, each with a capacity of 47MW.
“Therefore, the 25MW from the NDPHC is like a drop of water in the ocean,” he said.
According to him, “The unreliable gas supply is affecting hundreds of thousands of our customers, particularly manufacturing firms for whose sake Geometric Power built the $800m Aba Integrated Power Project, to accelerate the industrial development of Aba and its environs and serve as a model of electricity development in Nigeria, a promising nation whose growth has been hampered seriously over the decades by the absence of such basic infrastructure, as reliable power.”
Regarded as the biggest private sector investment in the Southeast, the Aba power integrated project was commissioned in February 26, by Vice President Kashim Shettima on behalf of President Bola Tinubu.
According to Ogbonna Chukwueke, an engineer and gas expert, who used to be a Shell executive, Geometric Power signed an agreement with The Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) in 2009 for the supply of 43 million standard cubic feet of gas (MSCF) from its Oil Mining Licences (OMLs) 11 and 17 in Owaza, Ukwa East Local Government Area of Abia State, for its four turbines to produce 47MW each.
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The former Shell engineer, who is now a petroleum consultant in Lagos, however, noted that the withdrawal of the petroleum giant from Nigeria’s onshore and shallow offshore operations following years of massive oil theft, vandalism against its facilities, community issues, and kidnapping of its officers for ransom by criminal gangs led to the transfer of the ownership and management of the OMLs 11 and 17 to local operators “who unfortunately, have not been able to deliver even up to10-million SCF daily to the power plant.”
But Geometric Power has disclosed that it was working “frantically to resolve the gas supply challenge,” acknowledging what it described as the wonderful and patriotic efforts of Vice President Shettima, Governor Alex Otti, Adebayo Adelabu, minister of Power and Mele Kyari, group managing director, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), in assisting to get a more reliable source of gas to the power plant.
Geometric Power Limited, through APLE, has continued with its metering programme, geared towards metering all customers within its ring-fence area.
This effort is supported by Meter Asset Provider (MAP) scheme, which allows the customers to pay for their meters and get refunded, by monthly deductions from their monthly bill, and the Aba Power Mass Metering Programme, which is vendor-financed and is carried out feeder by feeder, to ensure proper energy accountability.
The two key programmes were approved by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).
So far, the firm has successfully installed 11,859 meters under the MAP scheme, 19, 212 meters, through the mass metering programme and 452 distribution substation (DSS)/maximum demand (MD) meters.
The areas now metered include, Township 11 kV feeder, Aba East 11 kV feeder, Ehi Road 6.6 kV feeder, World Bank 11 kV feeder and IGI 33 kV feeder.
Additionally, the Umuchichi segment of the Owerrinta 33 kV feeder has been metered.
Opiegbe explained that the end-to-end metering programme, when completed, would reduce overall losses within the electricity distribution network, ensure efficient recovery of payment arrears and significant reduction in aggregate technical, commercial, and collection (ATC&C) losses.
He also noted that it would reduce technical losses, due to reduced transformer overloading and incidences of transformer failures, which improves service reliability.
For electricity consumers, he said that the metering programme would ensure that they receive bills based on actual electricity consumption and eliminate issues associated with estimated billing.
This system, which according to him is transparent, will build trust with consumers, reduce losses and improve billing accuracy.
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