OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — The Niger Delta Power Holding Company on Friday said an additional 126 megawatts of electricity will be added to the power grid in December.
Managing Director, NDPHC, Chiedu Ugbo in an interview said the extra megawatts will be added following the completion of work on the second gas turbine of the Gbarain Power Station in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.
According to him, one of the gas turbines of the Gbarain plant had been finally erected and ready to supply power to the grid.
“The power plant has a name-plate capacity of 252MW. One unit of 126MW is already working; it is the second unit of 126MW that we are completing. This is to happen this year.”
He explained that the Gbarain Power Station was one of the four power stations hitherto awarded to Rockson Engineering.
“Some of the stations such as Gbarain and Alaoji were partially completed. Some others such as Egbema and Omoku were not completed at all.
“Rockson is in receivership now; so it is insolvent and therefore the NDPHC board gave us directive to terminate (the deal) and we terminated all the contracts.”
Although Nigeria targets 25, 000MW by 2025 however, current generation stands between 4,000MW and 5,000MW.
Ugbo stated that the NDPHC had terminated the deal with Rockson and was carrying out procurement for some of the stations.
“Before now, at the Gbarain Power Station in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, only one unit of the gas turbine has been erected and in the grid”.
“So it was partially completed under Rockson. For the second unit, the erection has now been completed; so, we are undergoing commissioning now to ensure that it is working and then, we can bring it to the grid.”
The NDPHC boss said, “That takes a few months, maybe two to three months to be on the grid. So in essence, in two to three months’ time, we will be getting 126MW of power precisely.
The company also announced that it had started the transmission projects connecting Nkalagu-Abakaliki and other distribution projects in Afikpo where the CSP Transformers on 11KV lines were installed in Enugu State.
Ugbo said the NDPHC was in discussions with the Enugu Distribution Company to enhance power supply to the network through the eligible customer arrangement.
He said this step would address the issue of stranded power in the South-East region and ultimately increase revenue to NDPHC.
According to him, the NDPHC was engaging another contractor to finish the construction of Egbema and Omoku Power Stations.
