Worried by the poor state of power supply in the
country, especially as it concerns Lagos State, the state government has
pledged collaboration with the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) and
the distribution companies in the state towards resolving the challenges.
The inability of the distribution companies to pick
available power from the NDPHC, the implementer of the National Integrated
Power Projects (NIPP), coupled with the difficulty of securing a space to build
additional transmission line in the state, has been identified as part of the
issues depriving Lagosians of stable power supply.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday during a visit to
NDPHC's transmission substation at Oke Aro, a suburb of Lagos, the state Commissioner
for Energy and Mineral Resources, Mr. Olalere Odusote, said the state government
was ready to support every move by the NDPHC, the Ikeja and Ibadan Discos to
solve the power problem.
Odusote, who was taken round the facility and
briefed on the situation by the Managing Director of NDPHC, Mr. Chiedu Ugbo,
stressed that the ‘Light Up Programme’ of the administration depended on the
functionality and ability of the power providers to deliver electricity to the
state.
According to him, "What I found out here is
that there is capacity, just as NDPHC has earlier said that there’s ablility to
supply more power to Lagos State. If you look at what we have here, we have
about 500MW of capacity available to be evacuated. Out of which we have got 100MW capacity of
transformers that are actually going out; out of that 100MW, about 60MW comes
to Lagos.
"We can do a lot more than that. From the
discussions with the distribution companies in Lagos and from the interventions
that we are trying to carry out, we realised that we actually need the power to
come to Lagos. Now, our ‘Light Up Lagos’ programme certainly depends on the
power being available on the grid.
"The
interventions with the discos will not amount to much if there is no supplies.
So we expect that engagement and interaction with NDPHC will be able to do more
for Lagos State.”
He added: "For Oke Aro, the challenge they
(NDPHC) have expressed to us is one of getting way-leave to be able to get to
build a transmission line through Lagos, and we have been engaging with them,
and to date, we don't think there are more
issues on the Lagos side.
"We are certainly working with them to engage the
Ogun State Government to clear the issues that we have, which is also hindering
the transmission line from being built to Alausa."
Also addressing journalists, Ugbo said a lot of electric
power was lying stranded because the discos could not take them for
distribution.
He explained that the substation at Oke Aro has
seven feeders which should take a minimum of 100 megawatts, but that the
feeders of both Ikeja and Ibadan Disco only take less than 30MW.
This, he added, was a problem that needed to be
solved in order to make power available to the people of the state, hence the
visit of the commissioner.
Ugbo said: "I came here with the commissioner
because as part of the design of this project. We have a 132KV transmission
line that takes off from here to Alausa. That project has been on but we have
serious way-leave challenge.
"We have requested the support of the Lagos
State Government and they are actively trying to assist us to resolve the challenges
along the line route, not just on the Lagos State part of it but even in Ogun
State. So we have come to see in order to assess and to know where the
challenges are.”
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