» Mixed Fortunes As Electricity Generation Hits 4,068MW «

Electricity consumers in the country may not be smiling
yet as generation yesterday hit 4,068 mega watts still
assessed as abysmally low.
Though consumers were expected to be experiencing some
respite from the recent days of darkness the transmission
line that tripped from Egbin Power Station yesterday may
have further dampened rising hopes.
This is coming as the Transmission Company of Nigeria
(TCN) confirmed that about 21 power plants were presently
operation across the country, while some units are facing
setback due to transmission, water management and
rainfall challenges.
Meanwhile, Minister of Power, Works and Housing,
Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) has charged electricity
distribution companies (DisCos) to ensure the provision of
meters and end the frustration of customers waiting for the
never coming meters.
At the third monthly meeting with operators of the power
sector, yesterday at the Ugwuaji Transmission Station,
Enugu Fashola said : “The Federal Government would no
longer condone a situation where people pay for meters
and fail to access them within a reasonable time-frame.”
The Public Relation Officer of Transmission Company of
Nigeria, Lagos Region, Mrs Celestina Osin, who confirmed
the faults on the Egbin bound transmission line yesterday
said the blackout experienced in Lekki, Ajah axis since
Sunday, March 13th was a result of a detachment on the
sky wire of the Egbin-Ajah 330KV Transmission Line three
which feeds the area.
She said the maintenance engineers are already at work to
rectify the fault as quickly as possible, with the aim of
getting customers back to the system.
The Head of Corporate Communications, Eko Electricity
Distribution Company, Godwin Idemudia, said the line trip
had made it impossible for customers being serviced from
Ajah, Lekki and Alagbon transmission injection sub-
stations to receive power supply.
Areas listed to have been affected by the outage include
Lagos Island, Ikoyi, Victoria Island Lekki, Ajah, Ibeju and
their environs.
Idemudia then appealed to customers to please bear with
the company adding that supply to all affected areas would
be restored as soon as the fault is cleared.
The Eko Disco spokesman also assured that the
company’s distribution facilities are in good shape for
effective evacuation of power to customers as soon as the
line fault between generation and transmission stations is
fixed.
The national statistics on generation profile showed that
unutilised generation capacity from the power stations hit
3,231.6MW as at Sunday 13th, while the nation was losing
1827.5MW to gas constraints; 409.6MW lost to
transmission line constraints; 85MW lost to water
management issues; and 909.5MW was lost to high
frequency occasioned by heavy rainfall.
The minister, who chaired the meeting raised hopes that
the present challenges militating against the supply of
electricity in the country would be surmounted only if
Nigerians understood how the system operates.
At the end of the meeting, he told journalists they
“addressed the problems of gas, financial stability,
volatility of foreign exchange in sectors as to how that
affects the ability of the power plants, the GenCos, the
DisCos to implement their technical service agreement
with their foreign partners. It also addressed the difficulty
of pricing local gas consumption in dollars instead of
naira.”
On the problem of CAPMI metering system, he said: “We
resolved that people cannot take money from consumers
without supplying what was paid for. From the reports
given to us by the DisCos, many of them claimed that they
have largely supplied the meters that people paid in
advance for.
“I made it clear to them that a situation where people pay
for meters and they are not supplied, undermines trust. We
have given them marching orders to wind down all the
outstanding credit meters program that they have
collected money from people and haven’t supplied.”