FG says power transmission capacity increased to 8,500MW

The Federal Government announced that Nigeria's electricity transmission capacity has increased to 8,500 megawatts.

The feat was disclosed by state-owned firm, Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), who stressed that the new threshold would enable it to evacuate every quantum of electricity churned out by power generation companies, ThePunch reported.

Recall the federal government in 2013 unbundled the power industry, ceding the generation and distribution arms to private operators while retaining the transmission leg of the sector.

Ajiboye Oluwagbenga, TCN's General Manager, Transmission Service Provider, who spoke on the sidelines of the just concluded Bi-annual Joint Operations, Generation and Distribution Companies planning meeting in Abuja, said the government remained committed to enhancing the nation's transmission capacity.

Reacting to concerns that the TCN lacked the required capacity to evacuate the quantum of power produced by generation companies, Olugbenga said the reverse is the case.

“If you are talking about distribution constraints, that is there. But with generation, presently, available capacity can be conveniently wheeled. We don’t have constraints. In the few places we envisaged constraints, we are already working, preparing for evacuation,” the TCN official said.

When pressed to state the current transmission capacity of TCN, Oluwagbenga revealed that a recent simulation by the company showed that its capacity to transmit power had risen to 8,500MW.

He said, “Let me tell you one funny thing about this sector now, if you people attended the meeting we had with Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission recently, we demonstrated by simulation that TCN can conveniently wheel 8,500MW.

“But up till now, the power generation that is coming to the grid is always revolving around 4,000MW; why? We can blame the Discos (distribution companies) partially because we believe the off-take is not there due to revenue issues.

“But at the same time, I want to ask a germane question, when we were talking about service level agreement, why is the generation arm shying away from signing an agreement of 5,000MW?

“If they have enough capacity, why can’t they come together and sign the agreement as Discos and TCN have done. Let them sign their own part of the agreement with us that they will be able to generate 5,000MW and see whether TCN will not be able to evacuate it.”