THE Niger Delta Power Holdings Company (NDPHC) has flagged-off an $18million approximately N5.5 billion substation power project in Akruba, Lafia, Nasarawa state capital.
The project is expected to improve power supply to the state’s capital.
Speaking at the groundbreaking event on Tuesday, the Company’s Managing Director(MD), Chiedu Ugbo stated that the state only gets supply from Akwanga, which is a 93 kilometres distribution line of 33KVA.
According to him, the 330KVA substation upon completion would get its source from Makurdi transmission line which runs through Lafia into Jos.
“…The source of this supply comes from Makurdi going through Jos, unfortunately, this line just ran over Lafia without dropping down electricity for the town.
“what we are doing now is to turn the line into this substation and turn it back up again to Jos. So it comes from Makurdi, drops some load here and then takes off again to Jos. The load will be at 330KV that is the highest voltage we have in Nigeria,” he said.
The MD explained that the substation which is slated for completion before 2018 ends will be transformed into 132KVA and further to 33KVA for distribution by the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC).
“so at 33KV, the AEDC can take and serve the customers in Lafia and surrounding communities,” he said.
In addition to this, he said 2x150MVA transformers will be installed at the substation saying: “which means we will have the capacity to drop a load of 300mws here and then we will also move to two 60mva transformers that are 120 and at that TCN is building another 2×60 MVA transformer.
“So if we are able to drop 300MWs here, we will be able to push out at least 240 with the 120 transformers and the 220 of TCN so it is a huge substation and we hope to complete this project before the end of this year.”
He noted that the substation could also serve as a backfield for the Federal Capital Territory(FCT) describing it as an ideal third force of power supply to the territory.
“It is also hoped that this project will also back-feed the FCT if the need arises, it is also an ideal take-off point of a third force of supplying the FCT because currently, the FCT is getting supply from Shiroro and Geregu.
He further added that: “ All this started when Lafia became the state capital and there is an increase in socio-economic activities in the state, so you will find out that demand shot up considerably.
“So the governor reached out to the government, to us, to assist in developing this project and the governor reached out to the NDPHC before my arrival at the NDPHC and at the same time the governor had reached out to the Presidency.
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“We are working tirelessly with the contractor AK-AY. We are doing everything because we know how passionate the governor is about this project. The land was delivered to us by the governor, we are committed to ensuring that this project comes to completion and commissioned this year. We are committed to meeting the estimated time,” he noted.
The substation construction is being handled by the AK-AY Elektrik firm.
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