POWER GENERATION RISES TO 4,043MW AS GAS SUPPLY IMPROVES

By Michael Dada
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​The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) says the nation’s power generation rose from 3,528 megawatts (MW) to 4,043 megawatts between February 1 and 15, The Guardian reports.

Ibom Power plant, which is one of the 22 gas-fired power plants in Nigeria, resumed operation earlier this week and is currently contributing about 100MW to the nation’s power generation. The plant had produced for 195 days without outage until it was shut down due to maintenance work on Accugas facility.

TCN, on its website, said that the 515MW increase in generation as at February 15 was due to slight increase in gas supply to some power generating companies (GENCOs).

“The total output of 4,043 megawatts from all the GENCOs on Wednesday has been transferred to the 11 distribution companies across the country,’’ TCN said.

It was reported that the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) had announced drop in the power supply on Jan. 22 to 2,662.20 MW due to low water levels and the challenge of accessing gas by GENCOs.

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola who spoke at the 12th Monthly Power Sector and Stakeholders’ Meeting hosted by the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) in Ibadan, said that vandalism of gas pipelines had “decommissioned power plants and their ability to provide up to 3,000 megawatts of power”.

“The 3,500MW to 3,800MW that we have been able to keep on the grid over the last few months will be assisted greatly by about 3,000MW if we have the gas pipelines back. It means we will be able to deliver well over 6,000MW if the gas pipelines are safe,’’ he said.