With $5bn Investment, NDPHC is Nigeria’s Leading Power Financier
Chineme Okafor Having invested a whopping sum of about $5 billion (about N1 trillion) in building 10 electricity generation plants, several kilometres of transmission lines and distribution facilities across Nigeria, the Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited (NDPHC) has been adjudged the leading investor in the nation’s electricity industry.
NDPHC which undertakes electricity projects on behalf of the three tiers of government under the National Integrated Power Projects (NIPPs) is said to have also built several stretches of gas pipelines linking its power plants to gas production points and thus generating about 2,600 megawatts (MW) of the country’s acclaimed 5,500MW generation capacity.
Its Managing Director, James Olotu, made this disclosure yesterday at a forum of electricity generation companies in the country’s electricity market but explained that the generation capabilities of its inaugurated plants were currently hampered by disruptions in gas supply to them.
Represented by the company’s Associate Head of Generation, Onuoha Igwe, Olotu explained in Abuja that at the moment, NDPHC has the largest pool of investment and assets in Nigeria’s electricity sector.
He added that but for the gas supply challenges, all of its inaugurated generating plants would have been operating optimally.
He reeled out the origin of the NIPPs as an integral part of government’s efforts to upgrade the country’s power system which has remained in dire straits, adding that with such funds, NDPHC has built power plants that are slated for privatisation, transmission lines that have connected most parts of the country and distribution facilities to augment existing legacy distribution facilities.
On the company’s challenges with gas supply disruptions, Olotu said once there were disruptions on the southwest gas pipeline axis, there would be no gas to operate its generating plants at Ihovbor, Sapele, Geregu, Omotosho and Olorunsogo.
“As at last week, those plants were running on only one unit each. Olorunsogo, which has over 600MW, had just a turbine running, which amounted to only 170MW,” Olotu lamented.
He further said: “What we have been seeing in the past year or two is persistent damage of the gas pipelines. The moment they are damaged, the plants’ turbines stop running and then there is no power supply.”
On its efforts to upgrade Nigeria’s weak electricity transmission system, he noted that the hitherto abandoned long stretch of the eastern transmission loop which extends from Afam in Rivers State to Ikot Ekpene in Akwa Ibom State, Ugwuaji in Enugu State, Markurdi in Benue State and then Jos in Plateau States will be completed by July. However, work on two ends of the loop has been completed.
A recent status report on the transmission and distribution infrastructure which NDPHC has undertaken shows that the 21.5 kilometre (km) gas pipeline Creek Town to Ikot Nyong power plant projects, 18km Ikot Nyong-Adiabo 330kV DC lines to evacuate power from Calabar power plant in Cross River State, 13km 132kv DC Adiabo-Calabar 132/33kV sub-station as well as reinforcement of the Calabar 132/33kV Substation with a 60MVA 132/33kV Transformer and bays to accommodate new lines from Adiabo have all been completed.
Other transmission and distribution works that have been completed or upgraded are the Jos 330/132/33kV Substation, 286km 330kv DC Jos-Makurdi transmission line, new Makurdi 330/132/33kv substation, 222km 330kV DC transmission line from Geregu through Lokoja to Gwagwalada, a 2x150MVA 330/132/33kV transformer substation at Gwagwalada in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) with a further 90kms of both 330kV and 132kV lines to interface with Katampe and Apo 330/132/33kV substations, 2x300MVA 330/132/33kV transformer Substation at OkeAro in Lagos which is now the largest 330/132kV transformer substation in the grid and 150MVA 330/132/33kV substation at Asaba in Delta State among others.
The NIPP was conceived in 2004 as a fast-track public sector funded initiative to add significant new generation capacity to Nigeria’s electricity supply system along with the electricity transmission, distribution and natural gas supply infrastructure required to deliver the additional capacity to consumers throughout the country.
The government in 2005 incorporated NDPHC to serve as the legal vehicle to contract for, hold, manage and operate the assets developed and built under the NIPP using private sector best practices. NDPHC is also set to commence construction of hydropower dams up North in the second phase of the NIPP.