Jul. 9, 2011 - Juliet Alohan - leadership.ng

President Goodluck Jonathan has approved the construction of 765KV super-grid transmission network to address the nation’s power challenge, Minister of Power, Prof. Barth Nnaji, has disclosed.

The minister made the disclosure yesterday at a special media briefing in Abuja, in commemoration of the first 100 days of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, while noting that the current 330KV and 132KV transmission network had become grossly inadequate.

“There is a plan to develop a super grid, right now the country has 330KV network, and 132KV network, but to distribute power across the country with great efficiency we need a higher voltage of transmission network, which is the 765kv transmission network, and the plan has already been approved” he said.

Nnaji explained that the super grid project would come in stages, according to him, “the first stage is to agree that we are going to embark on such as project, which the President has approved that we will do it.

Then there will be feasibility study, feasibility study is already in process, and then there will be the design.
Explaining further, he said: “It is only after this that you do a request for proposal on who will carry out the project. The project is supposed to take four years from the time when we give notice to proceed with the construction of it, and the good thing is that it will come in phases. As you get somewhere and you build a sub-station for it, then it will be able to solve the problem of that area.”

Speaking further, Nnaji stated that as part of committed efforts to tackle the power challenge, government was planning to construct three additional coal power plants of 1,000MW each in Kogi, Enugu and Gombe States.

He noted that the policy of previous administrations have not favourd coal production, stating that part of the problem was that coal and power were being treated as one business. “But what we are doing is to ensure that coal is treated as a business unto itself and selling it to power producers, that is how it is supposed to be,” he stressed.

“Although it will take a number of years to do this, but we have to get started. The administration is not looking at how long it will take to complete the project, but the vision of the President is to get started,” he said.

He further stated that government has adopted two key strategies, which are: to achieve short term improvement and stabilisation of power, and long term stability. He informed that President Goodluck Jonathan has instructed that whatever amount of power currently being generated must not be allowed to drop, noting that fluctuation of power was frustrating.

On current generation, Nnaji said: We have installed capacity of 6,000MW at our power plants, but currently we generate only about a third of that, which is not supposed to be so.

---