Gurara hydro power plant to generate 30Mw of electricity – Fashola

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, has said that the completion of the Gurara Hydro Power Plant in Kaduna State would generate an additional 30 megawatts of electricity, The Punch reports.

Fashola spoke on Friday in Kaduna when he visited the Gurara Dam project to assess the level of work. Fashola said the current administration was determined to increase the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in the country using an energy mix.

He said; “But you see that your country is developing wind power in Katsina, it is developing hydro power here in Kaduna. It is developing hydro power in Kasibila, we have been to Jebba, we have been to Kainji, Shiroro, slowly the energy mix is coming together.”

He said that government would soon complete and begin the evacuation of electricity from the plant, adding that approval has been granted by the Federal Executive Council to complete the Gurara- Kudanda substation. He expressed the hope that the project would be completed early next year.

40Mw Kashimbila dam to provide electricity to communities in 6 states – Fashola

Minister of Power, Works, and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola SAN, Thursday visited the 40MW Kashimbila Multipurpose Dam Project in Taraba State assuring that when completed, the Dam would serve the multiple purpose of protecting parts of the country from a predicted ecological disaster, provide electricity and support agricultural ventures in surrounding States of the Northeast, NTA reports.

Fashola, said specifically as regards electricity that the project was conceived in about 2007 to provide electricity to the surrounding communities of six states in the country. The Minister named the states to include Taraba, Benue, Cross River, Delta and Kogi on the route of the tributaries of the Katsina-Ala River. According to him, what the communities have presently is a 33KV line that transmits energy across 80, 90 to 100 and above kilometers adding that by the time the energy ultimately gets to the communities, it is not effective resulting in what is often referred to as “low current.”

Assuring that the project would solve all of the problems, Fashola, however, regretted that the contracting firm has not been paid for about two or three years adding that the project had just been put into the budget. He said, “We have approved payment for the contractor and I have now come to see what we are paying for to ensure that the project is delivered”. “A lot of progress will be made between now and early 2018 latest, by 2018 this project would have achieved all of its objectives: protection, energy, agric, and water supply”, he added.

ABU partners Hungarian firm on 1.2mw bio-ethanol, bio-gas plant

The Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, in collaboration with a Hungarian company, has concluded arrangements to generate power from farm produce and human waste, Daily Trustreports.

Vice Chancellor of the university Professor Ibrahim Garba said that the independent power generation became imperative because ABU could not sustain the N86 million monthly electricity bills.

He said;  “ABU seeks to address these issues by building a bio-ethanol and biogas plant. The university has found a partner and reached agreement with Agrar-Biothanol Company of Hungary to undertake this project.”

“On completion, the plant will produce about 2.66 million litres of ethanol per annum, 1,333 tonnes of liquid organic fertilizer per annum and 1.2mw electricity,” he added.

Ebonyi to generate 5.5mw of electricity from rice husk biomass plant

The government of Ebonyi State is to purchase a 5.5-megawatt biomass plant from Germany which would utilise rice husk and other available waste materials to generate electricity, Vanguard reports.

The governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi, disclosed this after inspecting two of the three state-owned rice modern mills. Umahi said the plant would arrive the country in the next four months.

The inspection visit took the governor to Iboko in Izzi Local Government Area and Ikwo where he inspected the condition of the facilitates and said that one megawatt of rice husk plant and another 500 kilowatts would also arrive the state soon.

Paris based firm to build two solar plants in Northern Nigeria

GreenWish Partners, a Paris-based investment company focused on renewable energy in sub-Saharan Africa, plans to build two solar plants in northern Nigeria with a total capacity of 100 megawatts, Bloomberg reports.

The construction of the two 50 megawatts facilities will start next year and is expected to cost $130 million to $150 million, Chief Executive Officer Charlotte Aubin-Kalaidjian said in a telephone interview from the French capital. One of the plants will be located in Kaduna state, she said, declining to mention where the second site would be. Both plants will be connected to the national grid, she said.

“Nigeria is a very interesting market as it presents all the characteristics we’re looking for with regard to energy,” Aubin-Kalaidjian said. “There’s a high dependence on fuel oil and diesel, which are expensive and unreliable sources of energy, and there’s a political will to develop solar energy, especially in the northern regions where gas is less available.”

Galma multipurpose dam set to generate 2.2Mw of electricity – FG

The Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu on Friday said that the completed Galma multipurpose dam would provide over 1.1 million opportunities for people living around it, The Nation reports.

Adamu said this during an inspection tour of the dam in Kaduna state. He stated that the dam could also generate 2.2 megawatts of electricity and supply water to 2.2 million people in the surrounding communities and Zaria.

A statement issued by the ministry in Abuja on Thursday said the building of the dam, which has reached 100 per cent completion, started in 2006.

FG kicks off solar power supply to 40 federal universities

The federal government in conjunction with the German Energy Partnership Project on Thursday in Ibadan, Oyo State, formally flagged off its independent power supply initiative to all the 40 federal universities in the country with the ground-breaking ceremony of a 10-Mega Watts Solar Power Plant at the University of Ibadan, ThisDay reports.

Performing the ceremony on behalf of President Muhammadu Buhari at the Ajibode Extension location of the University of Ibadan, the Minister of State for Education, Professor Anthony Gozie Anwukah, described the event as “a historic occasion in the life of the university and of our nation” adding that it is in line with the national energy policy.

The minister remarked that the federal government, in its bid to replicate the gesture to all the 40 federal universities in Nigeria, envisaged that this should be achieved through the utilisation of off-grid Independent Power Plants (IPPs) which falls under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative.

Jigawa solar power plant to generate 80Mw

A Norwegian company, Novia Scotia Power Development Limited, on Monday said the proposed solar power plant in Dutse, Jigawa, would generate 80 megawatts of electricity when completed, The Punch reports.

The company’s Managing Director, Mr. Amit Modi, disclosed this while speaking with newsmen shortly after paying a courtesy call on the State Governor, Alhaji Muhammad Badaru in Dutse.

Modi assured that the project would be completed and handed over in 2018. He said that the 150 million dollars project would be transmitted to the national grid when completed.

Nigeria: NERC favours mini grid regulation

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission approves the adoption of mini grids to boost electricity supply to households, businesses and institutions in the country.

Last week, through a Draft Mini Grid Regulation 2016, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) stated that electricity distribution companies could now use mini grids as a bridge technology to accelerate their electrification activities, reports the Financial Watch.

According to the media, the Commission said the mini grid regulation was specifically designed to fast-track electrification in areas without any existing distribution grid.

The regulation is also intended for areas with an existing but poorly electrified or non-functional distribution grid, such as rural areas, NERC stated.

“If the power distributed by the isolated mini grid is larger than 100kW, the mini grid developer will need to apply for a mandatory permit. If the generation capacity of the power station installed is larger than 1MW, the plant is not a mini grid under this regulation and other regulations apply,”NERC explained.

Mini grid regulation for cost-reflective tariffs

Media also reported that, to promote this initiative, the Commission indicated that cost-reflective retail tariffs would be utilised.

NERC, however, added that tariffs would be higher than the current electricity distribution company’s retail tariffs but also noted that the tariffs would be lower than any electricity supply of the same quality generated from conventional sources in such areas.

“This regulation is suitable for any business model or technology that mini grid operators may wish to implement,” the Commission said.

It added: “The Discos [distribution companies] stand to benefit from mini grid operations and some of these benefits include the development of the Discos’ licensing areas, which are not being exploited at no cost to the Discos pending when they are ready to extend their operations to such areas.

“At such time, demand would have increased to attractive levels for profitable operation, and customers will be used to paying for electricity and complying with the safety requirements.”

Green mini grid help desk

Meanwhile, the African Development Bank (AfDB) has launched a Green Mini Grid Help Desk to facilitate the provision of renewable power to rural African communities.

The GMG help desk was unveiled during the recent 3rd International Off-Grid Renewable Energy Conference held in Nairobi, Kenya.

The AfDB explained that, “The GMG Help Desk provides online technical assistance on the myriad of activities important to the business cycle of developing and operating a clean energy mini-grid.”

The Bank added that the help desk was part of the larger Green Mini Grid Market Development Programme implemented by the SE4All Africa Hub and funded through the AfDB’s Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa.

Dr Daniel-Alexander Schroth, coordinator of the SE4All Africa Hub, said: “mini-grids are a key piece of the energy access puzzle in Sub-Saharan Africa and the GMG Help Desk will be a key tool to accelerate the deployment of private sector-led mini-grid projects in support of the New Deal on Energy for Africa’s vision of universal energy access in Africa by 2025.”

Solar market set to ‘explode’ in Nigeria, others provided chronic issues are addressed

According to Solarcentury’s Daniel Davies and other panel experts at this year’s Solar Energy UK | Clean Energy Live show, subject to regulatory risks and financing issues, the potential for solar deployment in Sub Saharan Africa is exponential, with the rooftop sector set to explode, PV Techreports.

Firstly, tackling the “regulatory risk” in Sub Saharan Africa is pivotal to exploiting the continent’s massive potential for solar and other renewables. Among the issues with regulation, Chijoke Mama, founder of Nigeria-based energy firm Energydatar, identified “lack of skills, poor financing and poor data” as other key barriers to solar taking off.

Several countries are coming to terms with solar and seeing it as a viable solution compared to conventional diesel-powered solutions and kerosene lamps. Nigeria in particular instigated nationwide energy reform in June 2015 in regards to the country’s feed-in tariffs (FiTs).

However, “regulatory ambiguities” are still a chronic problem in Sub Saharan Africa, within minimal government support established for solar as it is still often perceived as something new and expensive. DuPont’s Stephan Padlewski spoke on the import of lowering the costs of solar implementation. He said; “The cost has to be minimised to make solar competitive.”

Two power plants shut, generation drops to 3,403MW

 Two of the nation’s power plants were shut down on Sunday, bringing the total number of idle plants to nine.

The affected plants were Olorunsogo II in Ogun State and Trans-Amadi in Rivers State, with their installed generation capacity put at 625 megawatts and 25MW, respectively.

The nation’s total electricity generation stood at 3,402.5MW as of 6am on Sunday, down from 3,940.5MW on Wednesday, according to industry data obtained by our correspondent. The generation from the nation’s biggest power station, Egbin in Lagos, dropped to 451MW from 465MW on Wednesday.

Olorunsogo II, which was built under the National Integrated Power Project scheme, did not generate any megawatt of electricity because its units GT1, 2, 3 and 4 and ST2 were out due to gas constraints, and the ST1 out on maintenance. The plant produced 130.9MW on Wednesday.

Units GT1 and 2 of Trans-Amadi were said to be out on undisclosed reasons, while the GT4 was out due to gas constraints. It generated 15MW of electricity on Wednesday.

Other plants that did not produce electricity on Sunday were Alaoji II with an installed capacity of 250MW; Ihovbor II, 337.5MW; Afam VI, 650MW; Rivers, 160MW; Afam IV & V, AES and ASCO, whose capacities were put at zero.

The nation’s unutilised generation capacity rose to 4120.1MW on Sunday from 3,473.8MW on Wednesday, with gas constraints responsible for about 80 per cent of the stranded capacity at 3,269MW.

Other factors were line constraints and high frequency occasioned by rainfall/loss of distribution companies’ feeder.

Line constraints and high frequency led to the shut in of 371.7MW and 479.4MW, respectively on Sunday, up from 368.8MW and 85MW on Wednesday.

The nation achieved its peak generation of 5,074.70MW on February 2, 2016, according to the Transmission Company of Nigeria.

UNIDO sets $2.6bn aside for investment in small hydro power plants across Nigeria

A budget of $2.6bn has been set aside by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) for the development of Small Hydro Power Plants in Nigeria so as to beef up the electricity generation needs of Nigerians, Spark Online reports.

The Small Hydro Power Generation for which over 300 sites have been identified across Nigeria with only about 20 sites ready for development, is said to be capable of producing up to 3500 megawatts of electricity for Nigeria, if adequately explored and funded.

Key targets include the upgrade of capacity for local fabrication of small solar power turbines and control systems, establishment of private-public partnerships and facilitating conducive investment environment for sustainable small hydro power generation in Nigeria.

FG plans 45,101MW electricity generation from multiple sources by 2030

The Federal Government has unveiled a Sustainable Energy For All-Action Agenda (SE4ALL-AA) that would increase Nigeria’s power generation from the present 3,000 Mega Watts (MW) to 45,101MW by 2030. Government plans to achieve this target gradually from the present 3,121MW from fossil fuel to 18,200MW by 2030, The Guardian reports.

The Federal Government, which disclosed this in its Sustainable Energy For All Action Agenda document also expected renewable energy generation to reach 13,800MW. It declared that by 2030, the country would be generating 13,000MW from gas, 3,200MW from coal; 2,000MW from nuclear; 5,000MW from solar; 1,000MW from solar thermal; and 1,100MW from biomass.

Director, Press, Ministry of Power, Timothy Oyedeji said in a statement that the Federal Government has adopted four documents, which are National Energy Efficiency Action Plans (NEEAP), National Renewable Energy Action Plans (NREAP), Sustainable Energy For All-Action Agenda (SE4ALL-AA) and the Nigerian Power Sector Investment, Opportunities and Guidelines.