The Minister of Power Adebayo Adelabu has said that the improvement recorded in the stability of power supply for a few months is a result of an improvement in power generation.
He made this known during a Press Briefing to update the public on the Transmission Company of Nigeria’s (TCN) efforts to restore power to the Shiroro-Mando 330kV SC Lines 1 & 2 and North East on Tuesday following the blackout in Northern Region for almost two weeks.
He stated that the Ministry was working to address the limited power supply. “During the rainy season, we have only about 25% of the power generated from hydro sources. The majority of our supply is from gas thermal. The rain does not have much impact on power generation during the rain system.
“I’m sure that the stability we have recorded in the past few months is not because of raining season but because of improvement in power generation. We just opened the Zungeru Power Plant which is not even generating at full capacity.
“It is generating at about 300-400MW because of the existing evacuation limitations. We are working to address this and I assure you that we will record further improvement even during the dry season.”
The Minister assured that power will be restored in the North as intensive work is ongoing to repair the vandalized equipment belonging to the transmission company. He urged the public to help protect this equipment, noting that resources that could have been used for other projects are currently being redirected to fix the damaged infrastructure.
“This is not the first time we will be having issues in that line. We’ve had vandalism there before but nobody noticed it because we fixed it within days. But this time was more severe and the repairs were delayed because of security threats.
“We’re working and hopefully, the light will be restored before the end of the work. We’re exploring alternative solutions while we continue to work to fix the vandalised towers.”
The Minister also warned that there will be capital punishment for these criminals who vandalize the equipment as there is a bill before the National Assembly for capital punishment for perpetrators of vandalism.
