NERC inaugurates taskforce to boost power supply

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has inaugurated a 14-man task force for the attainment of 5,000megawatts for the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI).

The commission said it planned to reach the new power generation level by the end of September 2015 as part of the plan to end the year with 6,000megawatts milestone.

According to NERC in a statement yesterday, peak capacity generation of 4,800megawatts was achieved few weeks ago on account of stringent regulatory measures applied by the commission with the cooperation of the industry operators in response to the Federal Government renewed commitment to improve power supply.

The Chairman, Dr. Sam Amadi, constituted a 14-man industry-wide taskforce with the terms of reference to ensure recovery of stranded 1,800megawatts within the network; articulate measures for effective delivery of the stranded power to consumers; and initiate actions to continuously ramp-up generation.

Amadi while challenging the Commission’s staff on the milestone said, “We are witnessing increase of gas supply to power plants. This has resulted in the historic 4,800mw generation a few weeks ago. From the report of the System Operator it is clear that we could have reached 5,000mw if we did not have load rejection by distribution companies and some frequency control issues as gas supply improved.”

He said that the present administration has “ensured discipline and zero tolerance for corruption have created a political environment that is aligned to NERC’s transparent, accountable and effective regulatory approach.”

He noted further, “But the success we have recorded is still precarious and fragile. We have genuine fear that unless we continuously monitor the network and focus on proactively solving small problems,” such as load rejection by electricity distribution companies with attendant shrinkage in gas supply that could damage the long term prospect of capacity growth in the market.

While encouraging the staff on the task ahead, Amadi said the Commission has solved the commercial reason for load rejection by abolishing the imbalance trading in electricity and has subsequently remove the disincentive for rejection of power.

Therefore, “We need to deal with the technical reasons which include poor network management by the electricity distribution companies and poor frequency control by the generation companies and Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN),” Amadi said.

He told the staff that the challenges ahead of them entails increased enforcement activities as well as ensures implementation of regulatory regimes that incentivised sustainable investment and efficient management of the network.

“In order to ensure that we are able to effectively deliver 5,000mw daily by the end of the month and 6000mw by the end of the year, I constitute a task force that will remove any obstacle to achieving the mandate,” Amadi said.

The task force is headed by the Commissioner, Engineering Standards and Safety, Dr. Abba Ibrahim with representation from National Control Centre/System Operator; Transmission System Provider; Market Operator; National Integrated Power Project; a representative each of distribution and generation companies.