Nigeria raises $1.57bn for power transmission management

Nigeria has raised $1.57 billion for the rehabilitation of its transmission infrastructure from international backers, Usman Gur Mohammed, managing director of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), has said.

Mohammed disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja saying that TCN was acquiring Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System (SCADA), a new energy management platform, which would help in providing transparency, as the industry activities can be monitored by operators of distribution, generation firms and other stakeholders, including online real-time fault detection and clearance.

He noted that two attempts by previous administrations failed but he raised a committee in 2017 to review the process and engaged EDF of France which raised a feasibility report on their installation and is being reviewed at the two day workshop.

“We must have a functional SCADA because TCN is a leading firm at the West African Power Pool (WAPP) and WAPP is moving to have a SCADA, we cannot be left behind,” he said.

Mohammed said that the company’s goal is to achieve 20,000 megawatts (MW), through its Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Programme (TREP) in the next four years was going according to plan and that the funding was raised from the World Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), African Development Bank (AfDB) among others.

He also said TCN had standardized its procurement process as incompetent contractors had abandoned 800 container shipments of transmission equipment for about 15 years at the ports.

He said, “We have recovered 655 out of over 800 containers stranded in Nigeria port; some of the containers were in the ports for over 15 years, while others had been auctioned.”

Mohammed also added that the transmission wheeling capacity had risen to 7,124MW from the 5,000MW.