Aba Power, Nigeria’s 12th electricity distribution company, is extending further its local content utilisation strategy, this time to acquisition of 20 pieces of power transformers.
Four months ago, the power company embarked on a Nigeria local content utilisation strategy, with the purchase of vehicles made in Nigeria for its operations in nine of the 17 local government areas in Abia State where it provides power to assist the growth of local businesses.
Patrick Umeh, Aba Power’s managing director, noted that the company is confident about adopting the policy of patronising only Nigerian-made distribution transformers.
The electricity distribution utility which began operations in September 2022, is testing the integrity of the 20 transformers before deployment to its facilities.
“Once we confirm in the next couple of weeks or months their technical integrity”, we will order 50 additional transformers in the first instance,” said Umeh, a former commissioner with the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).
Business A.M. was reliably told that Aba Power paid Danelec Ltd, based in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, N10.497 million for each of 10 500KV/11 distribution transformers with 100% copper winding and N10.560 million per unit of 10 500/33KV transformers, bringing the total amount to N139.825 million, including a value-added tax of N4,73 million.
Uneh, the Aba Power managing director, said: “We will commission these 20 distribution transformers immediately, because there are a lot of old, faulty, and poorly maintained transformers in the system, many of them bought well over 30 years ago”.
Electricity industry experts say, while the Nigerian government has over the decades focused on power generation and transmission in the country, it paid little attention to the distribution segment in the electricity value-chain.
Distribution companies supply electricity directly to homes, offices and factories.
According to Cliff Eneh, who was an engineer with Texas Power & Light, USA, the consequence of the lip service attention on the distribution aspect, is the very poor state of the distribution network.
Eneh was also a former senior manager with the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
He explained that the poor condition of the distribution network is responsible for why the public electricity supply cannot power many machines, equipment in the country, forcing millions of people to self-generate at humongous costs.
As of 2022, the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED) said Nigerians spend N12 trillion annually on self-power generation.
Umeh disclosed that his company’s policy to use only Nigerian-made transformers to help address the crisis in the distribution network came from the founder and chairman of the Geometric Power group, Bart Nnaji, a former minister of power, who had earlier headed the ministry of science and technology.
Nnaji, a professor of engineering and robotics, is erstwhile director of the United States National Science Foundation-endowed Centre for e-Design in the University of Pittsburgh.
He recognises that “a radical improvement in local content in critical sectors is a most effective way to transfer technology to our people, enhance indigenous capital formation and create an entrepreneurial culture in Nigeria”.
Also reports say that Aba Power is in talks with local manufacturers of feeder pillars to select the best among their products to boost electricity supply.
