The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has disclosed that electricity generation in the country has reached an all-time 7,000 megawatts while transmission stands at 5,155 megawatts.
Fashola stated this at the opening of the 22nd power sector stakeholders meeting held at the premises of Geregu Power Plc, Kogi State yesterday.
The minister said the statistics implied that 2,000 MW was stranded and must be evacuated for use as more power will be generated in 2018.
Fashola said most of the challenges inhibiting power generation had been tackled. He noted that January to March 2017 was a challenging period characterized by insufficient gas supply and disruptions in the systems in the Niger Delta.
The minister however said the story has with government’s approval of N701 billion power purchase guarantee funds which made it possible for the generation companies to pay gas suppliers.
Fahsola also noted that in 2016, only one turbine was running because there was no gas supply to Geregu 1 owned by Amperion and Geregu 2 being managed by the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC).
But, according to him, the three turbines are now running because there is gas.
“The new problem is that the turbines are being managed not to run in full capacity because there is no enough demand at the distribution end to take all the power. What we now have as a country is that our power production has reached an all time high at over 7,000 MW. This is not where we were in January. It means our policies and programmes are working,” he said.
