Boluwaji Adeniyi
8 November 2009
Abuja — Barely six weeks to the December 31 deadline given by President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua to the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to increase the nation's power generation capacity to 6,000 megawatts, Ministry of Power yesterday said Nigeria now has capacity for 5,000 mw of electricity. The ministry also said the present status was a step towards attaining the Presidential target of 6,000MW by the end of this year.
In a statement signed by the press secretary to the ministry, Mrs. Olubunmi Badejo, Minister of Power, Dr. Lanre Babalola, who disclosed this said the proposed 6000MW short term goal was actually realisable as the sector already boasts of an installed generation capacity of 8,634MW.
Babalola also said the actual generation capacity still hovers around 3000MW due to what he called challenges in sourcing adequate gas to power the generating plants.
He however pointed out that the ministry was collaborating with the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Nigerian National Petroleum Corpora-tion (NNPC), Nigerian Gas Company (NGC), and International Oil Companies (IOC's) to proffer solution to the problem of inadequate gas supply.
He said the sector had already recorded impressive progress in the area of transmission and distribution with 647MW transmission capacity already added to the existing 4,000MW/ He added that this capacity would appreciate to 6,683MW in December.
In the area of distribution, the minister said the sector had also recorded major achievements with line replacement of 750MVA and reinforcement of 383.5MVA at the injection substation and 1590.71MVA at the distribution substation.
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