OpeOluwani Akintayo
14 November 2018, Sweetcrude, Lagos — The Executive Director, Research and Advocacy, Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors, Sunday Oduntan, has revealed reason electricity distribution companies, Discos reject load from the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN.
In a telephone interview with our correspondent, blamed it on TCN, adding that the company is fond of sending electricity to its members even whenever they are not in need of it.
“In ANED, integrity matters to us. We are saying that you don’t bring the load to where I don’t need it and you cannot force me to take it where it is not useful for me. When you take it to some places where I cannot recover the money, you will still come back and say I am not paying to the market or remitting.
“TCN is fond of taking electricity to where we don’t want it because they cannot get it to where we want it because they have dilapidated infrastructure; they have a lot of constraints or bottlenecks preventing them from taking the power to where we need it.
In another interview with the Punch, Oduntan had cited several cases across the country leading to why Discos had rejected load from TCN.
He said, “The TCN station in Abeokuta has a technology of 1979; it was inaugurated around 1980/1981. It is only this government that has now invested money thereby trying to upgrade two of the three transformers; even that upgrade has yet to be completed.
“Apart from the upgrade going on, there is a bottleneck – breaker issue – from Ayobo-Ipaja through Ewekoro into Abeokuta, which has been there for more than eight years. The breaker issue is making it impossible for us to get enough quantum of electricity from the source at Lagos Ikeja West, which is Ayobo-Ipaja, Lagos, down to Abeokuta. Those are transmission constraints.”
The ANED spokesman said, “When people talk about load rejection, you should be asking the Transmission Company of Nigeria if we have ever rejected load when we ask for it to be taken to a specific location. We are not saying we do not reject load; we are saying that there is a certain load that is taken to a place other than where we want it”, he said.
Oduntan’s reaction came following torrents of load rejection reports by the Discos across the country.
Low electricity demand by Discos had equally led to low generation by generating companies, Gencos.
For instance, total electricity generation in the country had remained below 4,000 megawatts in recent months as against the usual 5000MW.
