The Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) has signed a framework agreement with the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) to deliver additional 250 megawatts from stranded power to customers within the franchise area.
The Managing Director of NDPHC, Mr. Chiedu Ugbo said at the signing of the agreement yesterday that the two companies had collaborated in 2020 to explore options for the delivery of safe and reliable power to customers in the BEDC’s franchise area. He said: “Today, we are glad that we gather here for the purpose of signing a framework agreement for this collaboration. For the NDPHC, the project will enable us to deliver more 250MW of power to customers of the BEDC’s franchise areas in Edo, Delta, Ondo, and neighbouring states. The project will help the BEDC to satisfy its customers with reliable power and achieve an enhancement of its network and infrastructure.”
He added that the homes and industries of the BEDC’s customers could now enjoy 24 hours power supply. He noted that the NDPHC had been concerned about the “insufficient dispatch of its power generation capacity and liquidity challenges, which meant that only a small proportion of the power dispatched gets paid for. Meanwhile, many consumers remain unserved or underserved.”
The NDPHC boss explained earlier that the journey to the agreement started with initiation of the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) by the Federal Government of Nigeria in 2004 as a government funded initiative to stabilise the country’s power sector.
He said that the government incorporated NDPHC as a limited liability company to serve as a legal vehicle to hold the NIPP for its states and local governments.
Ugbo noted that the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) has evolved significantly from the construction of NDPHC’s 10 power plants with combined capacity of over 5,000mw. According to him, more than 4,000MW of the 5,000 has been completed.
The evolution, according to him, has presented the industry players, including the NDPHC and the BEDC with unique challenges. Ugbo added that the distribution firms could not raise the capital investments required to upgrade their respective networks due to the challenges bedeviling the industry.
On her part, the Chief Executive Officer of the BEDC, Mrs. Funke Osibodu, said her company aimed at delivering incremental power from the NDPHC underutilised or stranded capacity to several industrial and commercial hubs through multiple solutions across the certain locations in Delta, Edo, Ondo and Ekiti States, for electricity value chain.
Osibodu explained that under the agreement, the BEDC and the NDPHC would provide end-to-end power solutions across the value chain to deliver minimum of 250MW of additional power.
She said the collaboration would see the BEDC partner with the NDPHC and others to identify and prioritise critical projects that would increase power supply while improving on technical and commercial environment.
She noted that the “focus will be power supply to certain areas as well as upgrading of all critical distribution infrastructure”