Nigerians to enjoy 18 hours of uninterrupted power by 2014, says Minister

Nigeria will hit 10,000 megawatts in power by December 2014, Minister of Power Prof Chinedu Nebo has said.

The minister estimates that at that capacity  18 hours of uninterrupted power supply in every part of the country would be guaranteed.

Nebo,  in a briefing to the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on the activities of his ministry at the party's secretariat on Tuesday, however highlighted transmission challenges.

He was accompanied by the Minister of State for Power, Hajia Zainab Ibrahim Kuchi.

He said that there were urgent needs to address the  transmission challenges, which if not properly fixed, could lead to incessant to system collapse.

The minister was recently quoted as saying that the country's electricity had suffered system failure for about 15 times this year alone.

He said: 'We envisage 10,000 megawatts by December 2014. With our short term, long term and immediate strategies that we have in place; in addition to working assiduously with other stakeholders in the power sector, we will get there.

'We have the NIPP work going on, and the Niger Delta Power Company coming up for commissioning by December 2013, we look forward to 10, 000 megawatts come December 2014.

'If we succeed in making it more than that, we will be very happy. But we are focused on actually delivering 10,000 megawatts by 2014. And this by our calculations and data we have on ground.

'We will give at least between 17 and 18 hours of power supply to Nigerians. The 24 hours power supply will happen but we are working steadily towards that'.

The minister said the private sector is expected to inject more funds into the power and participate more in distribution.

Also speaking at the forum, the minister of state said the current system collapse was caused by over grown shrubs around transmission areas, adding, however that the problem was being addressed by a technical team put in place by the ministry.

The two ministers said that the process in the power sector is a sensitive one because every aspect of the process must be in place before transmission could be meaningful.