Expect drastic power improvement in six months – Minister

Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu, says drastic improvement in power will be noticed across the country in six months.

He said the Buhari administration was worried about power generation hovering around 5,000MW.

According to him, efforts are being intensified to increase it to 7,000MW, then 11,000 MW before finally reaching 25,000MW in a few years.

He said, “Within six months, you will see the electricity of this country improve. The Siemens which is an agreement struck between Nigeria and Germany will come on stream, there are 10 massive transformers to be deployed all around the country in specific locations. We also deployed 175 mobile substations some greenfield, some brownfield, which are going to construct.

“This is 215MW, we have lots of them; Gurara Dam with 30MW, Zungeru with 700MW, Kashimbila has given 40MW to the grid, Dadinkowa also 40MW. We will increase energy. I was in Katsina on new year day January 1 to inspect the windmill which will produce 10MW and a 330KVA transmission line to Kano.”

The minister said the 215MW Kudenda power station in the Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State, which had reached 80 per cent completion, would be completed soon.

He noted that the turbine power station, which was designed to use both gas and diesel, was initiated by late President Umaru Yar’ Adua but started by former President Goodluck Jonathan only to be abandoned by that government in the twilight of its administration despite nearing completion.

The minister spoke during an inspection tour of the facility in the company with Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State on Tuesday.

He said, “The present administration is worried about the power generation hovering around 5,000MW, and efforts are in top gear to quickly increase it to 7,000MW, then 11,000 MW before finally reaching 25,000MW in a few years time.”

The minister said the major challenge faced by electricity in Nigeria is the poor transmission of power generated, adding that the government is doing everything possible to harvest the generated power, transmit them and generally improve electricity supply across the country.

“This power station project started in 2012 and it has reached over 80 per cent completion before work stalled, now we are trying to revive it. There are four partners and we are discussing with them to see how we can complete the project and bring it on stream. It would be powered by diesel first before the supply of gas because it uses a dual source of power.

“This year is the year of delivery, the present situation we are in is not good enough, we have to improve. The power generated has been 5,000MW for a long time, it would be going down without investment which is why we are having system collapse, we had 15 or 16 years back, last year it was only two system collapse.