For many years water supply to the metropolitan Kano area and other parts of the state has been one of the daunting infrastructural challenges with far-reaching effects on various facets of activities and service provision in Kano State. As such, various administrations have come up with different approaches and projects aimed at addressing the challenge but not much has been felt as a respite by the residents. This is, however, about to change with the 10MW hydroelectric power station at Tiga in Bebeji LGA.
The close to 15 million population across the 44 LGAs of the state, residents have for many years been forced to seek alternative means of getting water. These include wells, boreholes, truck pushers, rivers and streams which are not always hygienic.
According to official data, between 2003 and 2008 only, the state government spent over $58m to construct the 150m-litre capacity water treatment plant in Tamburawa and another $180m-litre daily capacity plant in Challawa.
The power station at Tiga was thus expected to not only power the Tamburawa water treatment plant, but to also provide job opportunities for youths.
It was gathered that the idea of the Tiga Independent Power Plant which is now being developed by the Kano Hydro and Energy Development Company (KHEDCO) under the administration of Gov Abdullahi Ganduje was conceived in 2002 during the first tenure of Gov Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and that the idea was readopted during his second tenure in 2013, along with another independent power plant situated at Challawa Gorge Dam.
A similar challenge the Tiga power station is also expected to address is the pockets of security issues within the metropolis, which experts say can be majorly addressed by proper lighting of streets. Most Kano streets over the years have not seen the lights mounted by the roads due to epileptic power supply that has forced many of the street lights to be connected to diesel-powered generators. And with the constant increase in the cost of diesel, some of the streets that are occasionally illuminated have also reduced, thereby increasing security challenges like phone snatching, robbery and carjacking.
But as far-reaching as the impact of this project looks for Kano people, it suffered several setbacks in the past years, with its completion earlier scheduled for 2018 which did not happen till the end of the first tenure of Ganduje in 2019 and since the beginning of the second tenure same year several dates of commissioning have had to be rescheduled.
But speaking during a recent tour of the facility, Gov Ganduje said the project would be commissioned on January 29. This, it was gathered, is already among the projects being lined up for commissioning by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Expressing satisfaction with the statuses of the projects during his visits to Tiga station and Tamburawa Water Treatment Plant, Ganduje commended the efforts of KHEDCO, contractors and other stakeholders.
He reiterated that as it was designed from the beginning of the process, the 10MW generated from Tiga would be used to take care of the Tamburawa Water Treatment Plant and metropolitan street lights.
He said, “With this, our water issue will be dealt with decisively. So also our street lights issue will soon become history. While this project will be commissioned on the 29th of January, 2023, we are still on a similar project in Challawa Gorge Dam, where we are generating 6MW. And the two needed licences for operations were secured from June, 2021, from the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC): licences for power generation and distribution.”
He further said it was for the purpose of generation and distribution of clean and renewable energy that the state government established KHEDCO as a limited liability company.
On her part, the Managing Director (MD) of KHEDCO, Engr Hadiza Ahmed Tukur, who confirmed that the pre-commissioning test of the station was being completed, explained that the power station was equipped with two generators: a vertical generator for 8MW and a horizontal one for 2MW.
But for the project to be commissioned and put to use from January 29, the governor said two more processes had to be completed. The first one, according to the MD, is certification by the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA) which has already inspected the project and is expected to convey the certification before the commissioning date.
She added that the other process before the commissioning was automation, which is the linkage between the generation and the SCADA system.
She said, “We have already gotten permission from the Hadejia Jama’are River Basin Development Authority to open the water (Tiga Dam) to rotate our turbines. For the 8MW, we will test-run it without load first and two weeks after we will test-run it on load. Hopefully, by then, our NEMSA certification is ready,” adding that the test-running for the 2MW would be done after the 8MW test-running, but that both generators would be “finally tested on load hopefully by January 29.
“The evacuation/transmission lines have been fully completed from Tiga to Tamburawa Water Treatment Plant; 100 per cent. We are generating and also transmitting at 33KV, but on reaching Tamburawa, we have our step-down transformer, a 33-11.”
Engr Tukur revealed that the control panel at Tamburawa also made provision for electricity from the grid which would be needed yearly whenever there was the need for maintenance work, and that one of the lines would be connected to the 2.5MVA transformer substation along the Eastern Bypass and to other small transformers within the metropolis that would illuminate the street lights.
She believes that by the time the station kicks off at the end of the month, a lot of burdens, including payment of utility bills to DisCos and purchase of diesel, would be lifted off the shoulders of the government while the government would also be able to deliver better on the provision of potable water and security.
