FG targets 6,000mw electricity capacity by year end

The Federal Government has said it is targeting the attainment of 6,000megawatts (mw) generation capacity by the end of this year.

The Minister of State for Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Mustapha Baba Shehuri, said this yesterday when he met with a delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“We are expecting that at end of the year, our generating capacity will be over 6,000mw by end of 2016, 10,000mw in 2019 and 30,000mw in 2030,” Shehuri said.

The peak power generation as at yesterday was 2,751mw, about 378mw less than the 3,129mw attained on Wednesday, daily power statistics from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) said.

While the highest peak ever attained was 5074mw in February this year, the minister said with the recent Road Map to Power, timelines and plans have been set for deliverables.

He also contributions acknowledged the of donor agencies in the power sector. One of such is the loan pact of $273million earmarked for the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) as a Partial Risk Guarantee (PRG) for investors in power plants; the African Development Bank (ADB) provided another $200million for grid upgrade plan for the TCN, the minister said.

The Permanent Secretary, (Power), Louis Edozien said the challenges from the incessant vandalism of gas infrastructures, has led to a development plan which identified stages of growth from 2017 to 2030.

He said that a lot of new renewable energy sources would soon come upstream including the 40mw Gurara dam (Kaduna), 40mw Kashimbilla dam (Taraba), 10mw wind farm (Katsina) and 30mw phase one of Kudenda thermal plant (Kaduna).

The leader of the delegation and Chief of Mission, IMF, Mr. Gene Leone, said: “...we are interested in on-going project initiative, that would positively impact on the lives of Nigerians, this will enable the Fund to have better understanding of areas of assistance or help in the quest of filling those gaps.”