By Ayobami Adedinni
The Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, on Sunday disclosed that it recorded new national peak with the transmission of 5,222.3 Mega Watts (MW) of electricity into the national grid on December 18.
TCN General Manager, Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah, said in a statement obtained by petrolgasreport that the achievement was the highest ever recorded in the nation’s power sector to-date.
Mbah said the current peak transmission surpassed the 5,155.9 MW attained on December 8, and the 5,074.7 MW earlier recorded on February 2, 2016.
She said TCN developed the Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion programme to enable it to prioritise and execute critical transmission projects, to properly key into the incremental power policy of the Federal Government.
“This necessitated the clearing of the company’s stranded containers carrying various transmission equipment at the seaports, to enable it to complete previously abandoned projects to further expand the grid capacity.
“Of the 759 containers abandoned by contractors at the seaports within the last five years, 454 have been cleared from March to-date. “Payment for 193 containers has been made and they are being cleared, while payment for the outstanding 112 containers has yet to be made,” she said.
Mbah further explained that all the 454 containers cleared from the ports had been taken to its various construction sites in Yola, Gulak, Katsina, Jos, Dambatta, Ganmo, Abeokuta, Onitsha and Benin.
She said that other construction sites that the containers had been deployed to included Odoguyan, Ede, Igangan, Okene, Walalambe, Akwanga, Kachia, Kumbotso, Kaduna, and Yola.
According to Mrs. Mbah, the containers had been abandoned at the ports for 2 to 6 years by contractors for various reasons. One of the reasons, according to her, included suspension of TCN’s Import Duty Exemption Certificate (IDEC) in 2013 by the Ministry of Finance.
She said other reasons were slow processing of IDEC by TCN in the past and inefficiency of the contractors. “The result was several uncompleted transmission projects in various parts of the country.
“TCN reiterates its commitment to continue to work to further stabilize, rehabilitate and expand the grid,” she said. Mbah urged all Nigerians to assist the company in safeguarding electricity installations nationwide.
