TCN Raises $1.57bn in 2-Yrs to Expand, Stabilise National Grid
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Usman Gur Mohammed the managing director, chief executive officer of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), has disclosed that the company has raised $1.57 billion (N540billion) in the past two years, according to a report by Leadership.
According to him, the fund was raised through the Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Program (TREP) which seeks to expand and stabilise the nation’s electricity grid and provide necessary flexibility and redundancy consistent with N1 reliability criteria.
Mr. Mohammed stated this at the ongoing two workshop organised by TCN as part of efforts to ensure quality control in the sector through the installation of functional Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System- Energy Management System (SCADA-EMS) and Telecommunications Facility, in the transmission substations across the country, holding in Abuja yesterday.
Addressing participants during the opening ceremony, Mohammed said one of the target his team set for itself on assumption of office in February 2017, was to ensure the stabilisation of the grid for effective service delivery in the sector.
To achieve this, he said, “We established the Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Program (TREP) that seeks to expand and stabilise the Grid and provide necessary flexibility and redundancy consistent with N1 reliability criteria.
“This is being done through the implementation of the Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Program (TREP). Through the TREP, we have been able to raise $1.57 billion, discussions are ongoing to raise even more in the course of the programme implementation.”
Enumerating some of the achievements TCN hitherto considered as the weakest link in the Nigerian electricity supply industry (NESI) value chain, Mohammed said
“We have achieved control of 49.50Hz to 50.50Hz and developed a plan that will enable us move to 49.50Hz and 50.20Hz. We have raised the capacity of the grid which used to be 5,500MW to 7,124MW as at December, 2017 when the last simulation was done.
“We have delivered a report that reduced the bloated structure of TCN,” he further revealed.
He stated that his administration restructured TCN’s project management techniques through the decentralisation and creation of four project management units. He explained that through the use of in-house capacity, the company has installed over 20 power transformers in the last one year.
“We have recovered 655 out of over 800 containers stranded in Nigeria ports, some of the containers were in the ports for over 15 years, while others had been auctioned,” he stated.
In his keynote address, minister of power, works & housing, Babatunde Fashola, said the workshop was part efforts to ensure the achievement target of incremental, then stable, then uninterrupted power with 10 GW by 2019 set by the President Mohammadu Buhari’s administration.
The minister, who was represented by the permanent secretary, Power, Engr Lious Edozien said, TREP was expected to stabilise, expand and provide necessary flexibility and redundancy for a 15 GW national grid that meets the needs of all industry operators and their customers.
Meanwhile, industry experts said the SCADA-EMS and Telecoms were very essential modern tools for effective system operations – providing real-time data and voice exchange between remote stations and the National Control Center (NCC) as required for display, operation, control and management of the power system network.
Historically, the first computer – based SCADA system (Pilot scheme) was introduced in the then National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) at Shiroro in 1990 and installed by Messrs AG of Germany. This pilot SCADA System was installed at Shiroro Area Control Center (ACC) to supervise 10No. 132kV Transmission Substations including Abuja.
On completion of the Shiroro ACC, Siemens AG of Germany was again awarded another contract for the design and construction of a Supplementary National Control Center (SNCC) at Shiroro which was commissioned in 1998.
The SNCC SCADA project covered 26 330kV transmission substation including seven power stations. SNCC SCADA functions were later extended via fibre optic links to the NCC, Osogbo in 2001.