By ABAH ADAH, Abuja
The Nigerian national power grid is set to receive a big boost as the 700 megawatts (940,000hp) Zungeru Hydroelectric Power Plant constructed in Niger State is ready and will commence operation in the coming weeks.
Minister of Power, Prince Adebayo Adelabu, affirmed this Wednesday during his inaugural interactive session with newsmen in Abuja against the backdrop of the claim by the previous administration that the plant was ready to deliver, but which was not seen to have started operation since then.
He said, “Zungeru Hydro Power Plant is ready. It can generate upward of 700 megawatts (MWs), and its concession has also been approved by Mr President, so we’ll start operating Zungeru any moment.”
The Power Minister said what remains to be done before operationalisation is upgrade of the evacuation infrastructure so that the 700MWs to be generated can be evacuated to transmission, adding that at the moment, the facility could only facilitate the evacuation of 300MWs.
Describing the 4000MWs of power and which Nigeria with a population of over 200 million people has been doing as shameful and unacceptable, the Minister stressed the need to prioritise power that is the bedrock of economic and industrial development of any nation and vowed to, in collaboration with stakeholders, bring the much needed transformation to the sector.
“We are going to make an impact. We are going to turn the industry around, to deliver reliable power to households, businesses, or industries; we don’t have an option. So that’s about roadmap,” he said.
The Minister said he was investigating the correctness of the five years extension of the licenses of the distribution companies (DisCos) as recently announced by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), adding however that it is not even as important as getting the operators to ramp up efforts towards achieving incremental power since the licenses of those who couldn’t meet expectation may be revoked any time for breach of contract.
He allayed the fears of electricity consumers as the operators continue to push for cost reflective tariff, saying, though review has been long overdue in view of the unstable economic indices, Mr President had considered the hardship being faced by the people and has asked that it be kept on hold until power supply is improved.
He said he was adopting a bottom-up approach whereby the challenges would be addressed from the consumers end the distribution to the top as against the practice in the past where more of the attention is upstream, adding that generation without the necessary structure to transmit and distribute amounts to nothing but waste of resources.
According to him, part of the plan is to sit down and do a review with the DisCos to restructure for effective and efficient performance which all of them must fulfill.
“I feel some of the territories assigned to some DisCos are too large for them to be effective and efficient. So we want to do a review, probably around the coverage, by creating mini-DisCos in agreement with the original DisCos,” he said,
He expressing delight that the Electricity Act 2023 has given sub-nationals the right to participate in the electricity value chain, even as he urged that they start with the distribution level.
He expressed regret at the idea of privatisation of the sector, saying it was ill-conceived based on the fact that power sector is a critical social need that is highly capital intensive and could only yield long term return in the development of society, hence it is not in the interest of an individual of organisation with short term vested interest.
According to him, commercialisation, in which case, government still retains ownership of the assets, but gives operators to manage, would have been better.
On why his meeting with the press to acquaint the public with his turn-around plans for the sector was delayed, Adelabu said he does not believe that doing so now after two months of assumption of office was late, given the complexities of the sector he has to oversee.
He explained that it was deliberate for him to understudy and understand the sector and establish the issues properly through engagement with all stakeholders in order to come up with a development plan devoid of the mistakes of the past.
He said a roadmap for the sector is in the pipeline and will be unveiled in December when he would be about three months in office.
According to him, there was the need to: understand the perculiarities in the operations of the various sub-sectors and institutions in the industry; the set goals of the President in line with the Renewed Hope agenda; and to carry all players/stakeholders along in the spirit of team work.
Speaking to his recent involvement in a landing plane accident, the Minister explained that he personally arranged the chartered flight in other to meet up with a national assignment he had in Lagos with the governor of the state after all commercial flights had gone, and the plane on arrival crash landed.
Thanking God for his safety, Adelabu said he he had put the event behind him to focus on his work.