Electricity generating companies
in Nigeria have said the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, indicted
President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and others in the
administration with its comments that power generating companies falsify their
capacity declarations for financial claims.
Last week, Thisday quoted
spokesperson of the TCN, Ndidi Mbah, as saying: “The NCC operates strictly in
line with the grid code and merit order. Stability of the national grid is
paramount. Unfortunately many GENCOs due to greed, destabilise the grid through
illegal practices in order to collect more money from NBET.
“They do so through false
capacity declarations, unwillingness to put their generators on effective
frequency response, delay in executing NCC dispatch instructions, intimidation
and blackmail of NCC operatives.”
Firing back, the GenCos, under
the auspices of Association of Power Generation Companies, in a statement on
Sunday by its Executive Secretary, Joy Ogaji, stated that TCN’s position meant
that the figures and statistics given by Buhari, Osinbajo and others concerning
the state of electricity generation and distribution were wrong.
Ogaji said: “This allegation was
indicting, not just the current administration’s efforts to increase power
generation in the country, but also efforts by all players in the value chain,
as they were being portrayed as relying on fraudulent data.
“Early this year, the Vice
President, Yemi Osinbajo disclosed that for the first time the country’s power
generation capacity rose above 7,000 megawatts (MW), with delivered capacity at
about 5,100MW.
“This was further corroborated by
the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, who also confirmed
same generation capacity.
“Similarly, His Excellency,
President Muhammadu Buhari in his Democracy Day speech on May 29, said the
country’s current available power generation capacity stood at about 7,500 MW.
And here comes an allegation from a reputable government organisation faulting
the government’s submissions.”
She noted that it was important
to state that GenCos were not currently paid on capacity declaration but only
on delivered capacity.
Delivered capacity in this
regard, she said, means converting metered energy to capacity, a practice
unknown or engaged in by any electricity market in the world.
Ogaji further stated that since
TCN, through its subsidiary, National Control Centre, is the source of all
power sector data as they relate to power generation, transmission,
distribution and consumption/demand forecast, the allegation of falsified
capacity declaration was worrisome.
She explained that capacities declared
by the GenCos are confirmed by the NCC before allocating same to the Discos and
cannot allocate what is not available.
She further stated that Gencos
have available capacity well above what the Transmission Grid can evacuate,
while she also questioned why the national grid that has a capacity of about
12,000MW is not able to evacuate 7,500MW.
Ogaji said: “Can the power
distribution companies, DisCos, alleged load dropping account for TCN’s
inability to evacuate the GenCos available Capacity?
“It is obvious that the grid
constraints and inefficient grid administration are reasons why NCC forces
GenCos to ramp down on their production without taking responsibility for the
associated deemed capacity payments.
“Meanwhile, it is difficult to
make distinction between the alleged DisCos load dropping and Transmission
inefficiency – which, of late has culminated into serial burning of power
transformers across the grid.
“It is also noteworthy that
because the grid cannot evacuate GenCos available capacity, the NCC dictates
what the grid can carry.”
Ogaji stressed that no GenCo
could declare the capacity it does not have because the NCC uses SCADA and
other electronic means to confirm every GenCo’s declared capacity.
“Therefore, it takes ignorance of
the market flow to make such a frivolous allegation that GenCos declare false
capacity which they cannot make available on demand.”
Ogaji maintained that in addition
to the NCC’s capacity to monitor, the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trader as well
as the Independent System Operator periodically send their teams to carry out
capacity test on all GenCos to re-confirm NCC’s capacity data.
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