The total amount of energy on Nigeria’s power grid plunged by 1,669.6 megawatts in one day, as the Senate has kicked against the continuous disbursement of bailout funds by the Federal Government to power firms.
Latest data on the country’s grid performance obtained from the System Operator of the Transmission Company of Nigeria on Wednesday in Abuja showed that power generation dropped from a high of 4,648.3MW on August 11, 2019, to 2,978.7MW the next day.
Our correspondent also observed that the lowest power generation figure of 3,254.1MW recorded on August 11, 2019 was still higher than the 2,978.7MW of August 12.
The power generation for August 12 was the most recent performance update of the national grid published by the TCN.
It was further observed that power generation had hovered around 4,997.7MW and 2,978.7MW since the beginning of August 2019.
This came as the Senate declared that it was not in the interest of government to be disbursing bailout funds to power firms, distribution companies in particular, without commensurate improvement in power supply.
The Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, disclosed this while playing host to the management team of the TCN in his office in Abuja.
The General Manager, Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah, stated that the Senate also expressed displeasure with the report on Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition contracts awarded three times in the past without success.
In a response to an enquiry from our correspondent on Wednesday, the TCN stated that the Senate called for a more stringent process of awarding contracts that would allow only competent and qualified firms to execute the project.
The Senate also expressed its support for the proposal to recapitalise distribution companies and advised that the 40 per cent holding of the Federal Government as stipulated in the Power Privatisation Act 2005 might be more beneficial to the nation if it was sold to foreign investors with technical know-how.
The transmission firm said its Managing Director, Usman Mohammed, who led his team to the National Assembly, presented a report to the leadership of the Senate on the TCN’s achievement in the past two years and a half.
Mohammed said the TCN had stabilised system frequency; executed the Transmission Expansion and Rehabilitation Programme, and secured $1.57bn from multi-lateral financing agencies for execution of specific transmission projects nationwide.
Other achievements are the evacuation of 755 containers with power equipment from the ports and the procurement of a functional Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition and a spinning reserve.
Source: The Punch
