*Egbin Thermal Power Plant.
06 March 2016, Abuja — The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, on Friday said that nationwide power generation has again begun to rise and was at 4387 megawatts, MW.
NERC said that this was following the successful completion of repair works on the recently damaged gas facility which provides gas feedstock to thermal generation plants in the country.
“Electricity supply through the national grid is now ramping up as it attains 4,387 megawatts peak generation as at Friday with a prospect for further improvement in power supply situation,” the NERC said in a statement from its spokesperson, Dr. Usman Arabi in Abuja.
According to the statement, the generation recovery follows a drastic dip in the nation’s power generation after peak generation level reached 5,070MW some few weeks ago before it suddenly nosedived due to inadequate gas supply on the main gas pipeline supplying many of the power stations in the south.
The supply shortage was on account of an inability to evacuate condensates and oil produced with the gas because the main oil export pipeline out of Forcados was vandalized two weeks ago.
The commission stated that with the successful repair work on the damaged facility, the system is now ramping up.
The acting Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Anthony Akah, also in the statement appealed to members of the public to cooperate with electricity industry operators and security agencies to stem the recent incident of vandalism on electricity installation.
He equally warned the electricity distribution companies (Discos) that the momentary downturn in supply should not be used to exploit unmetered electricity customers on estimated billing.
According to him: “Customer bills for unmetered customers should be as accurate as possible and reflect their actual consumption. It shall in no circumstance be arbitrarily inflated.”
Akah further said: “The reduction in the power supply when it lasted affects both metered and unmetered customers. For metered customers the drop in their consumption will be captured by their meter. For unmetered customers, it is imperative that estimated bills during this period are reflective of their actual consumption.”
He noted that unmetered and estimated customers have the right and option to pay current estimated electricity billing based on their last undisputed bill where there are concerns with the current estimated electricity bills, and asked the Discos to ensure diligence and professionalism in the estimation of unmetered customers based on the provisions of the Billing Estimation Methodology Regulations, 2012.
Akah said that the commission has deployed monitoring teams to report any act of negligence and extortion by the Discos.
Chineme Okafor – Thisday
