Dr. Atiku Abubakar, the Deputy Managing Director of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, has today revealed that Nigeria needs N15 billion to generate 8,000 megawatts of electricity by 2016. Abubakar disclosed this information while inspecting some on-going electricity projects at the sidelines of a training programme for auditors in Lagos.
He attributed the recent boost in electricity generation across the nation to improved gas supply to generating stations. According to him, power generation has been able to reach the highest peak in July of about 4,652 megawatts, adding that transmission capacity remains a little above the power generated so far. He noted that TCN has the capacity to transmit about 5,300 megawatts of electricity. He said:
"As generation is improving, we are expected to expand transmission capacity to be able to evacuate all that is being generated in the stations for distribution. I can assure that we have our plans, targeting projects that are very critical which have been mapped out so that within the shortest possible time, will be able to hit 8,000 megawatts transmission capacity by end of 2016.”
Abubakar also affirmed that over 30 investors interested in investing in the transmission segment had been shortlisted. He revealed that the names of the shortlisted investors would not be made public now stressing that: “we are trying to see that they are capable both technically and financially, because it is expected that they will fund the project”.
Abubakar said: "Presently, we are in the process of coming up with the framework that will enable them to recover their investment in time. Since Federal Government will not give them sovereign guarantee, we are coming up with modalities of repayment from our billing charges and internally generated revenue over a period of time.”
