Okechukwu Nnodim, Abuja
The Transmission Company of Nigeria on Monday said the power sector had in the past weeks continued to experience power supply shortage due to serious gas constraints to most of the nation’s thermal generating stations.
Also, latest figures obtained from the Office of the Vice President showed that gas unavailability stalled the generation of 4,156.5 megawatts of power on March 28 alone.
The TCN had reported the low gas supply to many power plants few weeks ago and stated again on Monday that the gas shortage had persisted till date.
This, it said, had restrained optimal generation into the grid and consequently the quantum of electricity transmitted to distribution load centres.
It said the thermal power plants most affected by gas supply constraint included Geregu Gas Station, now generating 0MW against 435MW; Geregu National Integrated Power Project generating 81MW with a shortfall of 354MW; and Sapele NIPP now generating 0MW against 230MW.
Others include Olorunsosgo NIPP, generating 0MW against 112MW; Olorunsogo Gas plant, generating 70.5MW with a shortfall of 195.5MW; and Gbarian plant, generating 0MW against 112MW.
Also affected by the gas supply constraint was Omotosho NIPP, generating 110MW with a shortfall of 220MW. Egbin power plant, Alaoji NIPP, Delta and Okpai were equally affected by gas shortage.
“Egbin is currently generating 596MW with a shortfall of 264MW. Delta II-IV gas is generating 306.81MW with a shortfall of 128.19MW and Okpai Gas plant is generating 159MW with a shortfall of 291MW,” the transmission company stated.
It added, “On the other hand, Rivers IPP, AFAM IV-V and Paras Energy are also generating with a shortfall of 40MW, 60MW and 30.2MW respectively. AFAM VI does not have gas supply problem but one of its units is out on fault.”
TCN stated that at present, Azura and Odukpani power plants were the only two thermal power generating stations generating at full capacity into the nation’s grid.
It stated that with the current situation, a few of the distribution companies that could pick more load were unable to because what was generated into the grid was what TCN strived to distribute equitably to the Discos nationwide.
On March 7, TCN stated that low gas supply was significantly affecting the quantum of power generated into the grid.
It insisted that the poor gas supply challenge had not abated but was getting worse, even after the maintenance of the gas pipelines.
TCN stated that there was need to urgently address the issue of gas shortage to thermal generating power plants nationwide to avert serious system disturbance.
This came as the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company stated that it lost 70MW of electricity on Monday due to TCN load shedding in Abuja alone.
The March 28 report from the presidency further showed that the industry lost over N2bn as a result of the inability to generate considerable electricity on that same day.
PUNCH
