The Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu
Nebo, on Wednesday said there would be more power cuts in the days ahead
due to ongoing maintenance works on installations across the country.
Nebo, while explaining why there was a
sharp drop in power supply at a briefing in Abuja, said the country lost
1,112 megawatts of generated electricity in two days due to the
shutdown of the Chevron gas plant.
He said, “A few days ago, precisely last
week Friday, Chevron shut down its gas plant for maintenance purposes,
which was to take place between Friday and Saturday. And the technical
crew in the power sector knew about the shutdown and this was in order
to make sure that damages are not done before losing the gas entirely.
“From time to time, there is going to be
shutdown and it happened two times recently between Benin and Osogbo.
If you don’t shut down these plants in order to have a safe restarting
process, you are going to lose the equipment. Once routine maintenance
is done, the process of restarting the machines that were shut down
takes some time.”
He said two power stations were affected
by the recent shutdown, stressing that the oil company and the
ministry’s technicians had to maintain the plants.
The minister added, “That is why between
two and three days, we lost some 1,112MW. That means Omotoso and
Olorunsogo plants were forced to shut down because there was no gas
supply. By design, Chevron has to maintain the gas pipelines and it was
so.
“You will notice that from Monday, we started seeing some increase that has stabilised. Right now, we have over 3,300MW.”
Nebo gave an assurance that occasional system failures would be addressed.
He said, “With regards to occasional
system failures, we are in the process of reviving the huge section of
the transmission machinery, especially the lines that are aged, failing,
dilapidated and in need of replacement. We are working on that.
“And for that reason, whenever a
significant part of the transmission network encounters serious
technical problems, you will experience system shutdown. And whenever
you have a serious problem, you must shut down in order to make sure
that the system is not overloaded at one end and create problems
throughout the entire country.”
It was reported on Wednesday that the nation had witnessed a significant drop
in power generation from a peak of 4,517MW attained on December 21, 2012
to 3,443MW on Tuesday.
The 1,074MW drop is, however, a slight
improvement on the 2,987.6MW peak generation recorded on April 6, 2013,
when a whopping 1,529.4MW was lost.
The minister also said that the meeting
with labour unions in the power sector over workers’ final entitlements
had been cordial and that very soon, private investors would take over
the power companies they bid for.
He also said the issue with Manitoba
Hydro International over the management contract for the Transmission
Company of Nigeria had been resolved, stressing that the transmission
infrastructure had received a boost.
“Manitoba has received the schedule of delegated authority and most issues in the sector have been resolved,” Nebo added.-punch
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