13 April 2014, Lagos – General Electric has said it is working with the federal government and some generation companies to raising the power level from the current 5,000 megawatts (MW) to 10,000 MW by 2019.
President and Chief Executive Officer, GE Power and Water, Mr. Stephen Bolze, who disclosed this to THISDAY in an exclusive interview, noted that it was already working with some gencos on some power projects to deliver 3,000 MW of the 10,000 MW in the first instance.
“In the next five years, GE will help to double the amount of power that is available to Nigerians. That is going to be great power. Right now on the grid, power is in the neighbourhood of 5 gigawatts (5,000 megawatts) which flows into households and others. We are looking at the government and other customers taking that up to 10 gigawatts (10,000 megawatts),” he stated, adding: “We now today have more than 3,000 MW out of those 10,000 MW in the pipeline. So things are moving up.”
Bolze recalled that GE signed a memorandum of understanding with the federal government to work with private power generation companies a year ago, to produce 10,000 MW.
He believed the most interesting thing happening in Nigeria is the fallouts of the sale of the power assets to private companies, pointing out that as a result of the privatisation, a lot of power projects are taking place, which will be of immense benefits to Nigerians.
Bolze, however noted that, Nigeria, with a population of more than 160 million people should have power generation level at nothing less than 50,000 MW.
He expressed belief that “the reform is putting attention on that”. Noting that “providing electricity to everyone will take time,” he said, “the reform activities and the privatisation activities are the right steps to move forward on that right now.”
The chief executive, who disclosed that out of the 5,000 MW that is available, 4,000 MW was built of GE technology, expressed optimism that the technology would bring more power to the citizens of Nigeria. “I think the reform activities are just going to continue to accelerate a number of investors coming into Nigeria to build on that,” he added.
– This Day
