The Managing Director of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), Mr Chiedu Ugbo, said the power plants with over 4,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity capacity, interventions in transmission and distribution assets are servicing the grid.
Mr Ugbo stated this on Wednesday at the 2022 Seminar for Power Correspondents in Calabar, Cross River State.
He said: “Not only have we delivered 4,000 megawatts in terms of generation capacity (eight plants); we have also done more in transmission and distribution.
“These are transformers which carry and transform bulk energy. If the government did not invest in the grid with the NIPP, probably the country would have been in darkness.”
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There is 9,220MVA transmission capacity from 125 projects which can take over 7,000MW power supply; 374 completed distribution projects added 5,214MVA to the grid and can supply 4,172MW electricity.
The NDPHC head said the objective of the board is to ensure that every Nigerian had access to electricity and so NDPHC deployed 20,000 Solar Home Systems (SHS) and the people are paying for it.
“We are doing another 100,000 in the Solar Power Naija and we have done close to 40,000 and people are paying for it. We are doing this to ensure that everybody is entitled to electricity,” Ugbo noted.
The General Manager of Renewable Energy at NDPHC, Engr Valerie Agberagba, said through the Beyond the Grid (BTG) project, 20,000 Solar Home Systems (SHS) were deployed across 12 states in six 6 months. This created 525 jobs and impacted 100,100 households. The on-going BTG II is the deployment of 100,000 SHS in 35 states with 24,944 units deployed so far and creating 1,266 installation jobs.
“Within a period of five to seven years, we should be able to install 1 million SHS because we want everyone to have power,” she said.
The General Manager of Fuel and Gas, NDPHC, Prof. Stephen Ogaji, said more investments are needed in generation as GenCos’ available capacity of over 7,500MW earlier is “now dangerously dropping to 6,000MW and sometimes below.”
Citing a Siemens report, he said the transmission system can only transmit below 6,000MW, though theoretically over 8,000MW while the distribution network can only supply 5,000MW.
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