Tag: Adelabu

• Additional 700mw boosts capacity

The Federal Government has said the national grid has been stabilised with additional 700MW transmission capacity.

Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu said this at the weekend when he received the EU Ambassador to Nigeria, Gautier Mignot, in his office in Abuja.

Adelabu said: “We have installed almost 90  per cent of this and they are working. And that has improved transmission capacity by over 700 megawatts, which is the result of what we are seeing now in terms of relative stability in the transmission grid. Before now, at the time the supply to the grid enters 5,000, the grid is unstable it shakes, collapses and all that.

“Now, we are having an average of 5,000, 7,000, 8,000 megawatts. So it’s not by accident. It’s because of these activities of the government.”

The minister said this administration has recorded two major milestones in the power sector ever in Nigeria.

He said number one is the highest  average daily power consumption.

  “Over 20,000 kilowatt hour it was achieved,  which has never been achieved before.

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Continuing, the minister said the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) has transmitted and distributed highest energy of 5,801.63MW as the latest feat.

Adelabu said, “ We have also achieved transmitted and distributed highest  energy  in the  volume  of 5,801.63,  which has broken the previous record,  achieved 2021.”

And lastly,  we have achieved a valuable generation capacity  of 6,003 megawatts ever  in Nigeria.  So which is why I keep saying that,  when you put in some level of activity, you see the results.”

Meanwhile he called on the member states of the European Union (EU) to continue to provide technical, financial, and other assistance to Nigeria, especially the power sector, which is the driving force of  the economy.

He said the sector is critical to the optimal performance of the economy.

Adelabu expressed the readiness of Nigeria to continue to work and collaborate with the Union and all its development partners in achieving both bilateral and multilateral agreements.

He told the envoy that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu took the issue of the power sector very seriously and has given all the needed support for the sector to make a breakthrough.

The Minister noted in particular the enormous financial support that the power sector has received from European Union nations, such as Germany, France and many others along with their development partners. He expressed delight in receiving the envoy as he said the meeting would ensure that both parties benefitted from the bilateral and multilateral relationships.

“First, let me thank you and welcome you. When I got the information that you  wanted to meet with me, I wasn’t surprised. I was also excited to receive you in my office  because we are trying everything possible  to ensure that we benefit from  bilateral  and multilateral relationships when it comes to  gaining  experience  of the Western nations on the issue of power. And like you rightly put it,  the power sector is so critical  to the optimal performance of  every other sector. Without power, it would be tough  for other sectors to  perform actively, which is why  Mr. President has placed so much  premium  and priority  to  transforming the Nigeria power sector.

“We have a history that we are not  proud of.  Over 60 years of   electricity in Nigeria  and we are still at this level  of epileptic supply  to households, businesses and industries. In fact, we  got electricity before some European countries. So  those that got electricity after us have stabilised their supply. They have made their supply reliable and they are benefiting from it through visible economic growth and industrial development. And today, we are still import-dependent on the majority of the things that we use in Nigeria not because  we don’t have the raw materials to produce these things,  but because of the lack of reliability and functionality of our power sector”, the Minister said.

He added that there has been a lot of improvement since President Tinubu took over power and he has initiated reforms that are yielding positive results and transforming the sector. He noted in particular, the investment in the non-grid supply to the rural and semi urban parts of the country.

He said: “We have seen some  reasonable improvements  since  this new administration  came in.  In three  basic areas.  Number one,  in the area of  energy access expansion. We have extended the grid  to so many areas where there were no grid extensions.  And we have also  exploited renewable energy in our rural areas and semi-urban areas  that were either underserved  or unserved.  Renewable energy in terms of  solar  energy,  most especially, and we have  small dams  which we are using for hydro power supply.  So we have achieved some level of  energy expansion in terms of new generation”.

The Minister disclosed that the revolution that is ongoing in the sector was as result of the bold step of President Tinubu, when he signed the Electricity Act of 2023.

He said “The second intervention with regard to the transmission is the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI), and you will recognize it better when I say Siemens Project. So we are  actually  securing the finance of close to  2.3 billion dollars  to ensure that we revamp  or transform our transmission  segments.

 “ And  the government of Germany  has been very instrumental  to ensure  this works.  The Siemens is handling  lots of the critical transmission projects there.  We also have some reputable Chinese firms too, that are doing  some distribution projects, based on  each company’s specialty and track records.  That is working well.  We have almost completed the pilot phase  of that project,  which involved importation,  installation,  commissioning,  and energisation of 10 power transformers  across the country and another set of 10 mobile substations.”

• •Ministry eyes 10m electricity metres in five years
• •Power generation improved 30% in 2024
• •MDA to spend N2,086tr

The Federal Government yesterday said it is working to eliminate grid collapse from the nation’s power sector in the long term.

The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, who disclosed this during a budget defence session before the Senate Committee on Power in Abuja, however said in the short term, efforts of the ministry are geared towards reducing the frequency of collapses and a 24 hours restoration of power in the event of any such occurrence.

Adelabu said: “We are proud to say that we almost met all our targets for 2024 with the meagre budget that was approved for 2024 and our hope that 2025 will be a better year for us and we will be able to address all the existing issues in the sector, which are the gas infrastructure issue, which still exists in terms of the supply of gas, in terms of volumes and in terms pipelines that are also vandalised, that actually supply poor quality of gas to the power generation companies, in terms of the old dilapidated transmission infrastructures that we inherited.

“Like I mentioned about partial or full collapses, as it is today, we cannot write it off that it will not happen. What we do is to ensure that we manage it and ensure that we reduce the frequency of collapses and when it happens, we have a very short turnaround time for us to bring it up. The target is 2024 hours and the grid must be up again.

“As it is, we are trying to manage but in 2025, the focus of the Presidential Power Initiative and other activities of the Transmission Company of Nigeria is to ensure that the grid does not collapse as frequent as it did in 2024 and the issue of vandalism which was also a major reason for the grid disturbances.

“We are collaborating and cooperating with the security agencies to ensure that we actually attack these issues and we nip it in the board to ensure that we don’t experience such in 2025.”

He also disclosed that power generation improved by 30per cent in 2024, adding that the Ministry has set a target of acquiring 10million prepaid electricity metres in the next five years beginning from 2025 to bridge the shortfall of the essential equipment in the country.

“The target is to procure a minimum of two million meters on annual basis for the next five years, that’s about 10 million meters, which we believe will completely eliminate the existing metre gap and billing will become transparent, it will become objective, and it will become fair and just to our people because we want to eliminate any form of fraud in terms of electricity billing and that will also improve people’s confidence in the sector.”

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He lamented that the Ministry was confronted with funding issues in 2024 while calling on the Senate to intervene through its power of appropriation.

He said: “We all know that the power sector is a very expensive and fund guzzling sector across the world. Outside food security, energy security has been an issue all over the world, not just in Nigeria. Go to Europe, go to Asia, go to the Middle East, South America, North America, it is food security, and energy security and we all know what are the causes of these.

“So, each country is actually struggling to ensure that they reduce as much as possible the negative impact of this energy security. So, we need to pump so much funds into it. We may look at the budget in terms of billions of naira, but by the time we translate this into foreign currency as 90% of items used in the power sector, they are imported. You will find out that our budget for 2024, will barely be sufficient to establish two substations.

“Yes, two substations and the one for this year too, in as much as it is much higher than what we had in 2024, in fact it is the highest so far in the history of the Federal Ministry of Power and that shows the seriousness of Mr. President and his team to ensure that the Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr. President touches on delivering stable electricity, functional electricity, reliable and affordable electricity to Nigerians.

“So we are still owing the generating companies. The last time I was here, I said it was about N1.3trillion. We paid about N180 or N200 billion a few months back. Since then, we have not paid and this is really affecting the activities of the generating companies. They have to pay their gas suppliers too. They have to service their machines, and they have to pay their staff. So we must be very reasonable and considerate in ensuring that funds are provided to pay the debts we are owing the GenCos.”

Adelabu further disclosed that power generation in the country improved by 30 per cent in 2024 due to concerted efforts by the ministry and other critical stakeholders.

He said: ”Our focus during the 2024 budget year was more on energy access expansion. As we know, quite a huge number of Nigerians still lack access to electricity.

“As at the last count when we were taking this job up, we had about 41per cent of Nigerians who lacked access to electricity, about 92 million people estimated towards the end of 2023, that is about 59per cent energy access in Nigeria.

“This was more in the urban and semi-urban centres, while the preponderance of rural areas lacked energy access. But I’m happy to inform you that during 2024, with the programmes of the ministry and agencies, we were able to establish that the energy access has moved by five per cent from 59per cent at end of 2023 to 64per cent by the end of 2024 and this is a result of the combination of grid access expansion and increase in the volume and activities in the renewable energy space, which cover mainly the solar assets, the small hydro and wind energy source.

“I want to also bring to the knowledge of this committee that power generation increased by about 30per cent during 2024 fiscal year. We met an average of 4,100Mwof power generation in 2023 and I can tell you authoritatively that by the end of 2024, we had a peak generation of 5,528 Mw of power from 4,100 that we made on-ground.

“The reason for this is not far-fetched. We know that we added a new hydroelectric power dam at Zungeru, of 700 Mw and also, there was a tremendous increase in the generation by other existing power generating companies, mainly hydro and thermal plants – Jebba recorded improvements, Kainji recorded improvements, Shiroro, Dadin Kowa, Kashimbilla  – also recorded improvement from 10 Mw to about 30 megawatts. Then we have Gurara, which is also being worked upon.

“With regards to thermal plants, almost all the thermal plants recorded improvements, especially the ones owned by the government, which is the plants under the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), from Olorosogo, Omotoso, Ihovbor, Sapelé, Geregu, Calabar, Egbema, etc.

“So we were able to increase generation to 5,528Mw at the peak. Even though our target was 6,000 megawatts, due to some challenges that we experienced towards the end of the year in terms of grid disturbances, we missed this target by a minimal amount.”

He noted that apart from energy access, the ministry had planned to stabilise the grid and other transmission infrastructure in 2024.

“I am happy to also inform you that out of the eight collapses of the national grid that we experienced during 2024, five were full collapses, while three were actually partial collapses.

“Out of the five full collapses that we experienced, three out of them were actually due to generation problems when we had issues with sudden reduction in generation compared to the power being taken up by the users which affected the frequency imbalance on the grid.

“The reason for this was not far-fetched. The gas infrastructure issue is there and then we had the Schneider automation issue that is not existent. So out of the five, three were from generation, while two were actually from vandalization (vandalism) problems.

“I do not want to over-emphasize this, because we are aware of what happened during 2024. It was a major issue for the sector and the major lines were vandalized. The last one was actually the Kaduna-Mando-Shiroro line which was one of the two major lines that took power to the North. The second one, which is the Ugwachu-Makurdi-Bauchi line, was also vandalized. That was when we experienced about a week of blackout to the north and we immediately rectified the Ugwachu-Makurdi-Bauchi line as the only source of power to the North.

“As I’m talking to you, we have not rectified the major line which is the Shiroro-Mando-Katuna line, which is why our grid is so fragile, because it’s only one line that is still supplying power to the North, and it’s being burdened unnecessarily, and we know the implication of this on the infrastructural technicalities.

So, it is still the insecurity that has not made us fix the Shiroro-Kaduna-Mando line, which has been handed over to the security agencies. Till today they have not even fixed it. So as against the 12 times collapse that is in the public space it is just about eight collapses, five full collapses and three partial collapses. Out of the five, three were caused by generation, while two were vandalization.”

He told the committee that out of the N2,086,790,002,565 allocated to the Ministry and agencies under it in the 2025 budget proposals, N6,273,058,012 is for Personnel, N4,211,403,159 is for Overhead and N2,076,305,541,394 is for Capital Expenditure.

He further disclosed that the Ministry has no plan to increase electricity tariff this year but to strengthen generation, improve power infrastructure and migrate more customers to Band A.

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Power, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, in his opening remarks, asked the minister to speak to how the challenges bedeviling the power sector would be overcome.

Abaribe (APGA – Abia South) said: “As you are aware, the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI), is currently bedeviled by endemic problems which have greatly undermined the efficient power supply in the country and is exemplified by the frequent national grid collapse in the country, among others.

“These challenges include, one, the issue of obsolete grid infrastructure, especially around the transmission and distribution segments of the national grid, which is considered a major culprit in the frequent collapse that we experience.

“Two, tariff shortfalls and Federal Government’s subsidy burden, which has impacted on liquidity in the NESI; and three, the metering challenge.

“Four, the debts that are owed service providers by ministries, departments and agencies vis-à-vis the liquidity challenge confronting operations of the NESI.

“Accordingly, as a departure from the usual yearly ritual, this year’s budget defence seeks to achieve the following specific operative objectives and also to answer the following questions, namely how the 2024 budget performed in the outlined issues above and what is being proposed to permanently address the issues.

“It’s therefore our expectation that the Honourable Minister will spearhead the budget defence along these lines and then when we come to the different agencies will get further insights into these issues. I will state that we expect full disclosures and total commitment to improving the supply of electricity to Nigeria.”