Electricity Generation Has Improved To 4000mw

ABUJA, Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) says electricity generation into the national grid is steadily rising to over 4000 megawatts, following noticeable improvements in gas supply to power plants.

A statement by the company’s spokesman and General Manager (Public Affairs), Seun Olagunju, in Abuja, confirmed that TCN is currently transmitting over 4000mw on regular basis to the electricity distribution companies nationwide.

Olagunju refuted last week’s allegation by the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) that the national grid suffered series of system collapses recently, which he said is misleading.

AEDC had claimed that it was able to distribute just above 100mw rather than the normal load of about 250mw.

She insisted that there has been no such system collapses and AEDC was never restricted to power levels below its allocation, adding that “it is public knowledge that the frequency of system collapses has been going down drastically following several equipment and infrastructure upgrade by TCN, besides aggressive capacity building of the system operators. In 2013, there were 22 instances of system collapses and in 2014, this was drastically brought down to only nine.

“This year, the transmission grid has experienced only four system collapses out of which two in May were attributed to extremely low generation of around 1400mw due to gas supply shortages.

“In fact, majority of these collapses are due to shortages in gas supply which creates serious load/generation imbalance. But there is a serious effort ongoing to reduce these collapses”, she explained.

The statement further added: “TCN, has secured spinning reserve contracts of 295mw, to provide stability and cushion the system in an event of sudden load/generation changeover.”

TCN affirmed that it would continue to work at enhancing the transmission capacity and reliability of the national grid in order to provide improved and sustainable power delivery to the electricity distribution companies (DISCOs).

The peak level of electricity generation in the country is so far 4,100mw, while the all-time-low in recent times is 1,600mw.

Credit: Daily Independent (Nigeria)