ABUJA: Four Inactive Power Plants Back on Stream

Source:  THISDAY LIVE

Four Independent Power Plants (IPPs), which belong to the governments of Rivers and Akwa Ibom States but were partly inactive for a long time, have come back on stream and now generate a cumulative average of 96.04 megawatts (MW) of electricity into the national grid.

THISDAY gathered on Saturday from sources at the National Control Centre (NCC) in Osogbo that in the last two weeks, the gas power stations: 3x12MW Trans Amadi gas turbine power station, 4x25MW Omoku gas turbine power station and 150MW Rivers IPP, as well as 90MW Ibom IPP have all been generating electricity into the grid.

The development was further confirmed by the Managing Director of System Operation/Market Operation, a subsidiary of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Mr. Dipak Sarma. He said the development was true, and that the plants now generate into the national grid.

Sarma, however, referred the paper to the NCC, from where it was gathered that 22.29MW has in the last few weeks come from Omoku on the average, while Trans Amadi generates on the average, 20.73MW and Rivers IPP, 28.02MW. The Ibom IPP contributes an average of 25MW into the grid.

“It is a positive thing in the grid. There are three generating stations that have not been producing for a long time now but have started generating now.

“They are all in River State: Omoku, Trans Amadi and then Rivers IPP. For a very long time they have not been producing but recently they started producing and contributing into the national grid. 22. 29MW from Omoku, Trans Amadi is 20.73MW and Rivers IPP 28.02MW, that is what has been happening,” said the NCC source.

The source further said: “This is an average production from them in the last two weeks. And Akwa Ibom is also 25MW now and they are all contributing. However, Rivers IPP was producing as much as 140MW earlier in the month but them generation went down. It would be nice to confirm from them the reason for that drop.”

On-grid power generation from the daily report of the System Operations showed that as at 6pm Friday, the country’s power plants generated up to 3,869.6MW for distribution to the 11 electricity distribution companies (Discos).

The report further showed that the generated power was allocated to the 11 Discos in the ratio: Ikeja Disco – 370.89MW, Abuja – 284.35MW, Eko – 271.99MW, Benin – 222.53MW and Enugu – 222.53MW. Others were 321.44MW for Ibadan Disco, 135.99MW for Jos, 197.81MW for Kano, 197.81MW for Kaduna, 160.72MW for Port Harcourt and 86.54MW for Yola.

Meanwhile, the Kano Disco has appealed to its customers in its franchise area to exercise some patience over the further drop in power generation, claiming that allocation to it has gone down to 84MW.

The Disco said in a statement that at the current generation profile, it is getting an average supply of 80-90MW. Its Chief Technical Officer, David Omoloye, said in the statement that it was a helpless situation from poor gas supply to generation companies.