By Clara Nwachukwu
TOTAL liberalisation of Nigeria’s power sector has been identified as key to ending the nation’s seemingly intractable power challenges, as this will attract more private sector participation and investments to the sector.

The Chief Operating Officer of Shoreline Power, Mr Marc Hasenclever said this in Shagamu on Thursday, while taking journalists on a facility tour of the 16.5megawatt, MW, capacity captive power plant built by Shoreline for Lafarge Cement (WAPCO) Plc.

He argued that the mini off-the-shelf modular independent power plant, IPP, is a demonstration of how private investment can bring about a rapid solution to electricity supply issues.

He said, “With the realisation of the WAPCO project, the procurement of the first rental fleet was concluded. The rental plant and equipment are mobile and transferable from one ite to the other during the life time of the equipment.”

Mr Hasenclever noted that regulation and monopoly of the power sector in the country has frustrated new investments as banks and other financial institutions are reluctant to grant facilities to develop power infrastructures for fear of losing their funds.

He said,”The issue of payment is a big problem in distribution. If you don’t control the money, the projects are not bankable. We were able to make a success of this (Lafarge IPP) because it was built for a captive customer – to generate, transmit and distribute electricity for Lafarge.”

He added that with the Lafarge mini IPP, the power purchase agreement, PPA, which has remained a big issue in power investment is eliminated as every transaction is between the cement company and Shoreline under a PPA of about N10 per kilowatt hour on a take-and- pay basis.

This, he said, is the challenge facing the 100MW Agbara Power Plant, which progress has been stalled for years for shortage of funds resulting from inability of Shoreline and PHCN to agree on the terms of power purchase.

The Shoreline boss argued that once the various units of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria are privatised – generation, transmission and distribution, not only will there be more captive power plants, which he said are the best for industries and residential areas, but there will also be huge investments in the power sector.

He said the Lafarge IPP was built at a cost of N1bn with facility raised by First Bank of Nigeria Plc, under a four-year contract to supply 10MW electricity and other related services to Lafarge.

“Once the gas engines arrived, it took us four months to install the equipment and we switched on the power on January 4, 2010. With the exclusion of the engines, and transformers, every other component was built by members of the Shoreline Group – including Alumaco, Fortis, Nigerian Wire and Cable and of course Shoreline Power,” Mr Hasenclever further clarified.

He noted that part of the beauty of the modular system is that it is fully automated and all the units synchronised and power is supplied according to demand 24/7 as well as the fact that the equipment an be demobilsed and moved out within two days.

Mr Hasenclever stressed that there is no fear of outage or equipment failure, as Shoreline runs the risk of losing about N2m daily in the event of failure.

Each of the six engines is a 1.3MW capacity facility manufactured by NWM of Germany and each supported by an 11KVA step up transformer manufactured by New India Electrical Ltd, with a 2MW diesel engine back up generator for start up of the gas engines.

Shorepline Power Company Ltd was incorporated in October 2004, as subsidiary of the Shoreline Energy International, a leading investment holding company operating in Africa, with diversified portfolio holding in construction, oil and gas, power, energy and engineering.