…Say they ‘re losing money, machines

By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief

While most Nigerian individuals and corporate organizations are suffering from lack of adequate electricity supply to meet their consumption needs, the nation’s electricity Generation Companies (GenCos) have cried out that the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has been directing them to reduce generation, which cost them huge revenue losses and damage to their plants.

The Managing Director of Mainstream Energy Solutions, Operators of Jebba and Kainji Hydro Electricty Plants, Engr. Lamu Audu, told journalists, in Abuja, yesterday, that the GenCos could no longer bear the constant energy production reduction orders of the TCN.

He revealed that between February and Monday (March 13, 2017) Jebba and Kainji alone lost 8, 574 MW unutilized electricity. He said that the total unutilized energy from all the GenCos in the period under review was monumental and most painful at a time most Nigerian homes and business hardly had enough power to meet thyeir consumption needs.

His words, “Generation has improved significantly. On the average it has been above 4, 000 MW in the last one month.

“Unfortunately, we (GenCos) have been at the receiving end. In the sense that we are not allowed to deliver what we are generating. I have records here, there is no secret about it and we want Nigerians to know that the effect is so much.

“ Apart from the loss of revenue after declaring what we are capable of generating, because we have what we call, “Day-Ahead-Declaration” by the regulation, we are expected to declare within the next 24 hours what we are going to generate, the capacity which we have and are sure to put into the grid –which we declare to the National Control Centre.

“It is a rule that you must declare in 24 hours that capacity, the idea of the declaration is to enable the system operator to prepare for what it has to give out.

“Unfortunately, most of the time, we are not allowed to put the whole energy we have declared 24 hours earlier into the grid.

“There are two things that happen: One, our machines will see that the power being generated and put on the grid is not utilized fully, so they will on their own de-load, they will come down on their own.

“Secondly, we receive direct instructions from the National Control Centre to reduce load or even shut down. We have the records here.

“What that means is that we have stranded energy. That is energy that is not being utilized. Now, one we lose revenue that should have come to us as a result of that energy that is not utilized.

“In addition, it has technical effects on our machines, leading to increase in the cost of maintenance.

“The third is that our shareholders are beginning to ask questions as to why should they put more money to realize more capacity, if what we are generating now is not being utilized. So you can see that it has weakened the appetite of investors to invest more in the generation of electricity.

“I just felt I should share with you events that took place between February and March (2017). Within the February and march, the total energy that could not be evacuated from Kainji and Jebba is 8, 574 MW. This is the energy that could not be evacuated either as a result of direct instruction from the National Control Centre or the frequency going up and our machines shutting down.”

Details to follow soon…