The 700 megawatts Zungeru Hydroelectric Power Station in Niger, which is currently at 90 per cent completion has suffered setbacks due to the rising insecurity which has forced workers out of the construction site in the State the Federal Government (FG) on Thursday said.
This was even as it blamed the erratic power supply currently being experienced across the country on the low water level in the hydro dams.
The Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu made the disclosure at the weekly State House ministerial briefing organized by the Presidential Media Team at the Villa, Abuja.
The FG had set December 2021 for the completion and commissioning of the project, which is expected to be the second-largest hydroelectric power station in the country, behind the 760 megawatts (1,020,000 hp), Kainji hydroelectric project.
But the Minister said the project site was attacked on 4th January, 2022, with two Chinese nationals working at the site kidnapped, after killing the security guards.
According to him, work has “slowed down at the site, while efforts are on to rescue the Chinese workers.”
Aliyu, who also spoke on the various initiatives under the Ministry, including Presidential Power Initiatives (PPI) being driven by Siemens, said the government is expediting action on the proposed installation of 10 power transformers with additional 10 mobile substations which will be delivered soon
“We are working tirelessly to ensure that all of these investments translate to incremental delivered power.
“There are 135 ongoing projects for transmission lines, substations and other associated grid infrastructure. TCN has completed 30 key Substation Projects and 12 important Transmission Lines.”
Also, he said the federal government has secured and is executing up to $4 billion in investments in the grid to ensure more grid power is delivered to citizens.
Aliyu noted that contrary to claims, the country has an installed capacity of almost 18,000MW and not 13,000MW.
He argued that supply comprises both captive, and embedded power to the tune of almost 8,000MW daily, as against the speculated 4,000MW.
His words: “I would like you also to take away that we deliver 8,000MW of electricity daily through a combination of Grid, Embedded and Industrial Captive supply of Electricity (not 4,000MW as is frequently reported), much of this capacity added during the life of this administration.
“These are not my figures; this was an industry study conducted by KPMG recently.”
The Minister further explained that the figures that come from 28 Grid Power plants with an Installed Capacity of 13,000MW and Operational Daily Capacities of around 5,000MW, with the plants located at Egbin, Ughelli, Geregu, Kainji.
“266 Captive Power plants (mainly industrial > 1MW) with Installed Capacities of 4,000MW and Daily Operational Capacities of around 2,500MW. These include the Dangote Cement Capacities in Obajana Ibese (400MW), and NLNG’s Bonny Island Power Plant (240MW) amongst others.
“These are never captured in the statistics but are part of the NESI and form our industrial load for jobs. In the future, many of these plants will integrate into the grid, in fact, some of them supply power to communities they occupy.
“From the KPMG rebasing analysis above it is clear that the NESI needs to make better utilization of particularly the Grid-based Power Plants. The only way this can happen is through the improvement of the Grid. The Federal Government has many key grid initiatives with more than N125.2 billion budgeted between 2015 to 2021 for TCN and Development,” he stated.
Similarly, the Minister disclosed that Right of Way(RoW) issues were stalling the execution of some critical power projects in some States.
However, he said the government was working with state governors through the Nigerian Governors Forum to drive a holistic solution to these lingering issues.
He identified some of the critical projects.
held up by RoW as the 330 KV Benin to Osogbo line, Ikot Ekpene to Ikot Abasi also 330 KV line and the Kano-Katsina 330 KV line covering 250 kilometres, 68 kilometres and 180 Kilometers respectively.
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