FG says 10,000 megawatts achievable in 2014

The country's goal of attaining 10,000 megawatts (mw) of electricity by December is not realisable but could be achieved by first quarter of 2014 based on a professional and realistic analysis of the sector.

According to the Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo who spoke to reporters in Abuja on the goal set by his predecessors, stated that: 'As an engineer and knowing the realities on ground, we will achieve this by first quarter of 2014. We need time to achieve part of the target. We will get close to it, but the truth is that we cannot get 10,000mw by December,' he said.

Reviewing the state of the power sector, the minister also called on Nigerians to exercise a little more patience with government as the power reform agenda would be executed.

On the generation capability, he stressed: 'Currently, installed available generation capacity has risen to 6,000mw. Peak generation is slightly above 4,500mw. We intend to add additional generation capacity of about 2,200mw from the NIPP projects (1,896mw), IPPs (292mw) and FGN legacy assets (514mw) before the end of 2013.

'The Federal Government is also investing heavily to boost generation through large, medium and small hydros with a total capacity of over 4,234mw.'

He said a $3.4 billion investment would be required to expand the transmission grid to be able to evacuate all the generated power.

He said the ministry was collaborating with the Finance Ministry to work out a blueprint for private sector's investment in transmission, stressing once again that the Transmission Company of Nigeria would not be sold to a private concern, but would remain a government-owned entity.