OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — Following the power outages being experienced across the country, findings by SweetctudeReports have shown that 14 gas-powered generating stations in the country had, in the last two months, either had limited generation or had not generated power alt all.
This came on the heels of an announcement by Eko Electricity Distribution Company, EKEDC, notifying customers of a planned outage from February 7 to 13 due to maintenance, and upgrading of facilities.
SweetcrudeReports gathered that affected power generating stations include Omotosho units 5 & 6, Olorunsogo units 3, 4 & 6, Omoku Units 3 & 6, Omotosho NIPP units 3 & 4, Delta units 15, 17, and 18, Afam VI units 11 & 12, Olorunsogo NIPP unit 3, Ihovbor NIPP unit 2, Sapele Steam unit 3, Sapele NIPP unit 1, Odukpani NIPP units 1 & 3, and Okpai units 11, 12 & 18.
Also, within the same period, Jebba Hydro and Shiroro stations were either out or had limited generation, causing a loss of 232 megawatts, MW, in the national grid.
Other power generating plants such as Omotosho units 3&4, Olorunsogo units 1, Delta units 10 &20, Afam VI unit 13, Ihovbor NIPP units 4, Geregu NIPP units 22&23 and Odukpani NIPP units 2, 4 & 5, have also been out either on fault or for scheduled maintenance, causing a further loss of about 3,180M.
A combination of the above scenarios had persisted and the total effect on the grid was persistent low generation.
More recently, from the 1st to 4th of March 2022, there was generation shortfall due to water management in Shiroro and Jebba hydro with the loss of 307MW and 125MW respectively from both stations.
Within the same period, there were fault and technical problems in Egbin, causing 514MW shortfall and in Geregu. leading to 230MW shortfall, while fault at Alaoji NIPP reduced generation from the substation by 263MW.
Findings also showed that gas constraint alone in Olorunsogo gas generating plant reduced generation from the station by 104MW.
In the same vein, Omotosho gas lost 102MW and Sapele NIPP 263MW. In Omotosho NIPP, there was generation shortfall of 233MW while a shortfall of 112MW was recoded in Omoku.
Two units in Okpai had limited generation during the period due to technical problems, causing a 204MW drop in generation and in Afam VI, a 511MW drop in generation was recorded.
Gas constraint and fault in Olorunsogo NIPP reduced generation by 240MW while in Geregu NIPP, it dropped by 435MW, and in Ihovbor by 142MW.
Due to gas pipeline pigging, SweetcrudeReports findings showed that Odukpani NIPP was shut down, which caused a reduction of generation by 575MW.
An explanatory note to SweetcrudeReports from the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, said a combination of issues, ranging from gas constraints, fault, and technical problems within generating plants, caused persistent low generation and consequently low load allocation to distribution companies nationwide.
“This is based on the fact that TCN can only transmit what is being generated by Gencos and presently they are all generating below capacity,” the transmission company stated.
It added, “It is important to note that except cumulative power generation increases considerably for TCN to transmit to distribution companies nationwide, TCN will be left with no choice than to continue to load shed.
“We will, however, continue to work hard to ensure the efficient allocation of the total load generated by power generating stations into the grid, bearing in mind the need to ensure that the national grid is stable in spite of the challenges posed by insufficient load on the transmission grid.”
Power distribution has been on a low side for close to three weeks now, aggravated by the over one month scarcity of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, in Nigeria.
“The correct position is that TCN can only transmit the quantum of power generated by Gencos through the national grid to distribution load centres nationwide.
“For clarity, TCN does not generate electricity and therefore can only transport cumulative generation from all the generation companies nationwide to distribution load centres.”
It stated that the distribution companies were responsible for end-user consumption, while TCN allocated power to Discos based on approved percentage of the total generation available per hour or on day-ahead nomination.
TCN stated that currently, the cumulative generation nationwide was low and Gencos had attributed this to several factors including poor gas supply, fault in generating units, scheduled and unscheduled maintenance.
It said all of these issues had caused most power generating companies to limit their generation, and sometimes not generate at all.
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