By Okechukwu Nnodim
The Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited has said that out of the 4,000 megawatts of electricity that is mostly available from the National Integrated Power Projects, only an average of 700MW is being dispatched,
It explained that the reason for this was due to electricity load rejection by power distribution companies.
This meant the Discos are rejecting about 3,700MW of electricity being produced by the NIPPs, which were plants under the management of the NDPHC.
The NDPHC was incorporated under the Companies and Allied Matters Act as a private limited liability company with shareholding fully subscribed to by the federal, state, and local governments, with a mandate to manage the power projects tagged ‘National Integrated Power Projects’.
In its July 2023 report on ‘Maximising National Integrated Projects,’ obtained by The PUNCH in Abuja, the power firm identified the load rejection by Discos as part of its electricity generation and operations challenges.
Under the section of transmission constraints, the firm said, “NDPHC has installed capacity of about 4,000MW which are mostly available, except for maintenance outage but is dispatched at about 700MW on average by the System Operator for reasons ascribed to load rejection by Discos.”
The System Operator is an arm of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, an organisation owned by the Federal Government, which transmits electricity generated by power generation companies to distribution firms across the country.
Nigeria’s power generation and supply from the national grid had continued to hover between 3,500MW and 5,000MW, despite the enormous need for electricity by the about 200 million citizens of Nigeria.
Power generation on the grid as of 6 am on Sunday, for instance, was 4,070.4MW, according to data obtained from the Federal Ministry of Power in Abuja.
The power generation and distribution arms of the sector were privatised in November 2013, but Nigerians had repeatedly expressed disappointment in the exercise.
In its latest report, the NDPHC stated that the “inadequate dispatch (of power) grossly affects NDPHC’s revenue generation capacity, adding that there had been “irregular dispatch (Disco load rejection).”
Source: The Punch
