Power Supply: TCN To Attain 7200 MW Wheeling Capacity In 2017

     The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has stated that it is working hard to complete all outstanding transmission projects across the country and increase the wheeling capacity of the company to 7200MW by the end of 2017 even as it laments acute liquidity crisis.

    The Managing Director/CEO of the company, Engr. (Dr) Abubakar Atiku, who disclosed this at a pressBRIEFING in Abuja,  said as  part of the company’s strategy to improve the wheeling of reliable power to all parts of the country,  several transmission stations have been upgraded.

“Wheeling “is the term used to describe the sending of the received power from the GenCos to the DisCos by TCN.

According to him, The Ikorodu Substation, which had 30MVA transformer capacity has been improved to 280MW, whereas the capacity of Sokoto and Birnin Kebbi  have experienced an increment from 30MVA to 60MVA and 180MVA to 330MVA respectively among others.

He said everything is being done to restore power supply to some parts of the Northeast “that have remained without electricity supply due to insurgency, adding that a 40MVA mobile transformer had been moved to Damboa to facilitate that.

“As a result of the network improvement, our wheeling capacity has grown from 5, 500MW when Manitoba Hydro International (MHI) left in July, 2016 to 6, 500MW in six months that the Nigerian management team took over and we are not relenting.

”We have introduced dispatching tools which have resulted in a more efficient interface with Gencos on one hand and the DisCos on the other hand and have succeeded in reducing Transmission Loss Factor (TLF) from 8.05% to 7.82% as at January, 2017 which has led to more power available for the DisCos to distribute and about N5billion additional revenue to TCN,” he explained.

He blamed the DisCos for not doing enough in their revenue drive to enable them meet up  with the market demands, admonishing them to sit up and stop being a dropback in the industry.

According to the TCN boss, power available to the national grid currently stands at an average of 3,200MW.

He said the company has 127 ongoing capital projects, out of which 22 have been completed but not closed out, 21 ongoing priority projects budgeted for in last year’s budget.

While appreciating President Muhammadu Buhari for the release of 98% of the budgetary provisions to support TCN, Atiku said “We are looking forward to improved budgetary provisions in 2017 to facilitate completion of the projects.

Atiku noted that the major challenge confronting TCN is the problem of liquidity in the electricity market, saying payment for electricity services in the market has gone down from 55% to 30% in recent past thus reducing the funds coming to TCN.

“It would interest you to know that that TCN is being paid an average of 33% of her total invoice sent to the Market Operator between January and September, 2016 which further reduced to 275 in the month of November, 2016,” he said.