power transmission infrastructureMinister of Power,Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola has disclosed that the Muhammadu Buhari-led government has taken up the challenge to improve the country’s power transmission networks to enable it wheel out total power generated across the country.

Fashola said the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) lacked the capacity to evacuate the total power that the generation companies (GenCos) produced to the distribution companies (DisCos),adding that solution is in sight.

“We intend to strengthen this part of our responsibility so that we can hold the GenCos and DisCos to their contracts with the citizens.We must play our own role of providing gas and expanding the transmission network,”Fashola said.

The former Lagos governor revealed that provisions for upgrade of the transmission networks have been made in the 2016 budget.

His words: “We have identified a total of 142 projects of which 45 are at 50 per cent level of completion and about 22 can be completed within a year.

“The budget estimates are known and we intend to aggressively pursue completion to increase the carrying capacity from the GenCos to the DisCos.

“From there, we must expand the carrying capacity to run ahead of the generating capacity so that in future, there will always be capacity to carry whatever power is generated,” he stated.

Meanwhile, the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) said it recorded stable power supply of 4,143.87Megawatts from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) for five days.

According to Power Statistics posted at the Ministry of Power’s website on Monday, the quantum of power that the company sent out on December 28 remained unchanged till January 2.

During the period under review, power generation also remained unchanged at 4,241.39mw, while peak energy generation remained unchanged at 4,553.2mw.

However, of the 4,241.39 megawatts generated, the TCN was only able to evacuate 4,143.87mw leaving 97.52Mw stranded in the network.

By OlisemekaObeche

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