Expect more power cuts, minister tells Nigerians

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.”
The PUNCH had exclusively 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.