Nigeria’s largest electricity generation plant, the Egbin Power station, has successfully scaled up its output to above 1,000 megawatts following heavy investments in upgrade of its facilities.
The chairman of Egbin Power Plc, Mr. Kola Adesina who made the disclosure on Wednesday said it is the first time in eight years the power plant has been able to generate up to 1000 megawatts of electricity. According to Mr. Adesina, the latest milestone is sequel to continuous investment and upgrade activities on the plant by the owners, Sahara Power Group and Korea Electric Power Corporation, KEPCO as well as government commitment towards transformation of the embattled power sector.
He described the Egbin power station turn-around as signpost of the unfolding success of the privatisation process and power sector reform in Nigeria. “This is driving the increase in power supply in the nation, boosting socio-economic development. Prior to this, we had invested heavily and had the plant ready to generate power at full capacity but there was no gas to do so. This is indeed a good development for the power sector in Nigeria”.
According to Dallas Peavey, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, the transformation in Egbin commenced following its acquisition by Kepco Energy Resource Limited (KERL), in collaboration with its technical partners, Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO).
“Through the injection of close to N50 billion in new capital into Egbin post privatisation, the Sahara Power/KEPCO partnership has brought to the power plant, an unprecedented level of innovativeness, professionalism, human capital development and continuing investment in new technology.
” The control room panels, installed at the plant’s inception have been removed and upgraded to state of the art digital panels. The highlight of the main plant rehabilitation occurred in the first quarter of 2015, when the company successfully rehabilitated ST Unit 6 bringing an additional 220mw to the national grid and restoring the power plant to its installed capacity of 1320mw,” he said.
Commending the Federal Government for recent interventions in the gas situation that has impacted power generation positively, he called for more dynamic policies and incentives for sustainable gas supply across the nation.
By Olisemeka Obeche (with agency reports)
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