To Fashola, it makes no economic sense to concentrate on building new power projects and abandon the idle completed but faulty power plants as well as those on the verge of completion but abandoned for one reason or the other. He said the country has over 12,000mw idle capacity.
Fashola said: “Let’s get these idle megawatts on stream by making rehabilitation of the power a priority. Let’s make use of what we have first before looking for new ones, he said. It is this conviction that led to embarking on the incremental power policy.
“We cannot have 12,000Mw installed and be concentrating on new ones without optimizing the existing ones – Egbema and Gbarain power plants are not finished, Olorunsogo, Omotosho, and Geregu are not optimised because there is not enough gas.
“In some places there are transmission problem. This is what the ministry is now tackling. The Federal Government’s focus now is on what will help on immediate contribution to increased power, whether it is on generation, transmission or distribution segment of the value chain. It is this priority that will determine the project government will award the contract.”
“If it is transmission project, we will award the contract. It is the one that goes to a power plant that is ready to deliver power? Some have gas and the power is there, but they cannot evacuate. So, let’s build the transmission line. Some have the transmission facility but don’t have gas. So, let’s build the gas pipeline.
“That is what is happening in places like Omoku plant in Rivers State. We will complete Omoku by March this year and it will give us about 270mw. We will finish Gbarain any time from now and it will give us over 115mw, Alaoji by June this year.”
The minister went further: “We will get more power from Kaduna, 215mw. We will get 10mw from wind plant in Katsina State this year. Zungeru project would have given us 700mw but was locked up in court for three years before we came on board. We have got the parties out of court but have lost three years. It will deliver by early next year another 700mw. Azura in Edo State, they refused to sign the partial risk guarantee but the Buhari administration has signed it.
“Azura project is on track and will be finished in June this year and will give us 450mw. So, we have to prepare to evacuate Azura and I have submitted the memo to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to approve the funding. We have to quickly build a 14-km 330kv line so we can evacuate power produced there to the grid.
“We are also trying to complete some rural electrification projects using Rural Electrification Agency (REA). There are many rural electrification projects from 1999 including various constituency projects. All of that will translate to more power.”
At the last all-stakeholders’ monthly meeting in Kogi State last month, it was reported at the meeting that Geregu Power Plant owners whose majority shareholder is Forte Oil Plc, invested $94 million and raised the generation capacity from 414mw to 434mw.
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