|
Stakeholders in the Nigeria’s economy have warned of impending crisis in the power sector five years after the successive companies of the defunct Power Holding Companies of Nigeria (PHCN) were sold to the private sector
The warning came on the heels of recurring crisis of confidence between the Federal Government and the players in the electricity sector over epileptic power supply in the country.
They advised actors in the sector to gird the loin by playing according to the sanctity of contracts for the transfer of the assets with a view to enabling the sector add value to the nation’s economy.
Comrade Chris Okonkwo, president of Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Companies (SSEAEC) told DAILY INDEPENDENT that the recurring crisis was capable of worsening the state of the nation’s power sector if not well managed.
He also blamed the spate of the crisis on the lopsided nature of the privatisation of the sector by federal government.
He said the new owners of the assets of the defunct Power Holding Companies of Nigeria (PHCN) have not shown requisite trust and confidence to grow the power sector to enviable height.
He said while the generation companies under declared what they generate, the distribution companies lack the will to recover revenues, while the agencies of the government are practically not alive to their responsibilities in providing checks and balances to the operation of the players in the electricity value chain.
He said the Federal Government started very late in changing the status quo by escrowing the accounts of the distribution companies and using its agencies in the sector to enforce the rules.
He noted that the recent hues and cries by the companies against the government was due to the former’s ploy to beat retreat from the rules.
He advised the federal government to accordingly sanction players who fouled the rules, and encourage those that play by the rules in order to ensure that sanity is promoted in the power sector.
Dayo Fasanya, an energy expert, also expressed displeasure over the recurring crisis in the sector and emphasized the need for actors to do the right things.
“Doing the right things mean that players there play by the rules religiously without breach or compromise. The earlier they abide by the rules the better for the country’s power sector in particular and its economy in general,” he added.
DAILY INDEPENDENT recalled that minister for power, works and housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, had last week said electricity distribution companies are responsible for poor power supply in the country.
The minister who spoke during an interactive session with members of the public held in Lagos said power generation in the country has increased from 4000 mega watts to 7000 mega watts.
Fashola, explained that government on its part has done all required in ensuring regular power supply across the country.
“Power generation has moved from 4,000mw to 7,000mw. The responsibility of now bringing power to your homes lies now with the Distribution Companies,” Fashola said.
“Let us be clear, all the powers that Government had, as far as the Power value chain, were already decided upon. The privatisation was already completed and the only control Government had was as a transporter, in Transmission,”
On other plans of increasing the megawatts, Fashola said power plants across the country are being engineered to increase power generation.
“Azura will give us 459mw, while Kaduna is bringing 215mw, 2 turbines are already being tested. There’s 240mw in Afam and ready to go. If we add these 3, that’s roughly 1,000mw new power generation to the grid,” Fashola said.
Besides, Electricity Distribution Companies (DISCOs) had identified low Transmission owing to persistent directive from the National Control Centre (NCC), to Generation Companies (GENCOs), to generate electricity below optimal level as a major hindrance to Nigeria’s drive towards efficient power supply.
Sunday Oduntan, the Executive Director, Research and Advocacy, Association of Electricity Distributors (ANED), said while DISCOs under ANED are not interested in any further controversies in the sector, but will continue to demand for enough power supply for Nigerians.
“We want Nigerians to know that the current distribution capacity of all the 11 DISCOs is 6,288 Megawatts, according to the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) stress test conducted in 2015.
“This is not our figure, this is the figure from the TCN side. Now what we are getting from them is far too low than what we are supposed to be getting.”
The power generation companies had also threatened to shut down their plants over repeated directive by the Control Centre to generate below optimal level.
The GENCOs, according to the Executive Secretary, Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC), Dr Joy Ogaji, are facing lower capacity utilisation having to operate their plants far the baseline settings to as low as about 50 per cent of total available capacity.
Using the month of April as a case study, Ogaji disclosed that on a daily basis, GENCOs had an average capacity of 7,484MW, but TCN transmitted only an average of 3985MW, about 53 percent of the available capacity.{“
For ANED, the implication of this trend in power generation is that DISCOs “are not able to supply enough power to (our) customers, and we are now making Nigerians to be aware that shortage of power supply or lack of power is due to TCN constraints and persistent outages from the TCN interface and the GENCOs have actually confirmed that.”
Odutan urged the Federal Government to urgently address the issue of Transmission bottlenecks in the power sector, noting that the development is a negative one for DISCOs’ business in particular, and Nigerians in general.
“What we are currently having is a suppressed tariff regime that is not cost reflective. A tariff that was calculated on the wrong assumption that by 2018, we would be generating over 7,000MW. The absence of that level of generation means that we are having more shortfalls in the market. The situation is now far worse when we are getting far lower than expected from TCN.”
Source: independent.ng
|
