The Federal Government (FG) has completed and commissioned a 60MVAR capacitor bank project, funded by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
The project was reportedly awarded to EPC contractor in 2016 at the cost of $12.1million
While commissioning the project sited at the Apo 132/33kV transmission station, Abuja, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola stated that the country’s population has grown marginally in the last 20 years, hence the need for transmission expansion.
“Today we come to addressed quality of power. Our population has blown over the past 20 years without commensurate expansion in the services we have installed and that is partly why you experience what we call load shedding, low voltage and I have promised that over the next few weeks and months which you will see our TCN staff reeling out nothing less than 90 projects to support transmission nationwide. You will also see over a hundred projects by NDPHC to support transmission and distribution nationwide.
“If there was one sector in Nigeria’s economy that investment appetite is high, it is in the power sector.
We are here because we promised incremental power and not only are have we improved the quantity of power that is available, we have improved the quantity of power that has been transported, and not only that, we have also improved the quantity of power distribution.”
Earlier, the Managing Director, Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Mr Usman Mohammed explained that the installation was necessitated by the on-going Transmission Rehabilitation and Reinforcement of Power infrastructure in Nigeria.
According to him, this will improve its wheeling capacity at the interface level with the Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos).
“The installation of this facilities was carried out by JICA through mutual cooperation between the Nigerian and Japanese government, to improve electricity supply to Abuja, Nasarawa and Benue states.
“the choice of Abuja for the project was as a result of comprehensive load study carried out by industry experts from JICA and TCN on voltage improvement and stable power supply,” he added.
Also in his address, JICA’s representative, Nigeria office Mr Katsutoshi Komori noted that in Nigeria, the high ration of reactive power, together with the insufficient capacity of facilities, interferes with the quality of electricity supply.
He explained that FCT and Nasarawa state have particularly high population growth rate and are rather far from power generation facilities and as such as suffered considerably from voltage drops and power loss.
“To address this challenge, JICA provided a grant for the procurement and installation of power capacity and related equipment at Apo and Keffi substations.
This project will stabilize the power supply in the regions served by those substations and is expected to provide stable power supply to approximately 7000 households.
“By improving the power supply capacity and reliability, this project is also expected to stimulate economic activities and improve the lives of residents,” he explained.
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