…7 plants out of 22 produced 66% power in Q3 2017
OpeOluwani Akintayo
05 September 2018, Sweetcrude, Lagos — Only seven out of the 22 power plants in the country generated 66 percent of the total power produced and consumed in the country in the third quarter of 2017, according to power generation statistics available to SweetcrudeReports.
It is an indication that the nation’s power sector is vulnerable to risk of supply.
Findings revealed that seven power plants in operation during the quarter under review – Omotosho, Olorunsogo, Odukpani (Calabar), National Integrated Power Project, NIPP, power plants and Paras – had the highest availability factor of 100% while Afam IV and V recorded the least availability factor of 8.6%.
Three of the power plants – AES, ASCO and Rivers IPP – were completely out of operation during the period under review and therefore, did not produce energy within the period.
Afam IV and V were out of operation for most of the period due to blade failure and burnt generator transformers.
Rivers IPP had been shut down since 2016 due to several issues, including high differential pressure at air inlet.
The availability factor, indicating the proportion of expected operational time that a plant actually operated, recorded a marginal increase of 3% in the third quarter 2017 from the 64% recorded in the second quarter. On average, generation plants were available 67% of the time during the third quarter.
This showed the vulnerable exposure of the grid to the seven major plants that produced a bulk of power within the period under review, as any downtime in any of them could destabilise the system if there was no proactive measure, such as adequate spinning reserves.
