TCN pushes recapitalisation to Nigeria electricity distributors

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), on Wednesday, urged electricity distribution companies (DisCos) to recapitalize their investment in order to boost their capacity as large volume of power waiting for evacuation is often rejected and was causing high frequency and system collapse.

Smart Omo Omoragbon, TCN’s assistant general manager, operations, made this call during a media tour of all the Ikeja west transmission sub-station, Ipaja-Ayobo, Lagos, where he noted that the transmission company was experiencing increased transmission capacity, due to the fact that government provided increased funding, but distribution capacity was still low in comparison, and that the private investors of the distribution sub-chain should recapitalize to be able to distribute their load allocation.

He said: “They are also improving but it might not also be at the same pace because the federal government is providing our funds. Their problem as far as fund is concern, they also need to recapitalize. Their network needs to be upgraded so that they can deliver energy to the Nigerian people.”

Also speaking with journalists during the tour, Etore Thomas, the deputy director of press, tasked distribution companies on increasing their capacities, saying that they were doing the “needful but they should step up their capacities.”

The team was also at Akamgba sub-station, where Anthony Dim, the assistant general manager of transmission, said there was consistent increase in the capacity, stressing that for the past two years, “we have experienced capacity increase in virtually all the sub-stations.”

Within that period, according to him, two MVAs have been added with 300 MvA on the site, which would be completed before the year ends.

He added that the station has an idle load that was “waiting to be picked up by Eko Distribution Company.

“We are trying to ask them to come here because we have more than enough capacity,” stressing that “Eko must evacuate the load; by the time they are not evacuating we will be reducing generation. For instance, if the generation is high, it can also lead to system collapse.”

“And that is why we cannot guarantee that system collapse is now history. It is a function of the load that is in the system. If the load in the system is not evacuated the frequency will be extraordinarily high and it can lead to system collapse,” he explained

In the Nigeria electricity supply industry, distribution capacity is about 3,000-5,000 megawatts, while the supposed transmission capacity is about 7,000megawatts (MW).