Follow Us on Google
By Adewale Sanyaolu
Last week’s fire incident that occurred at the biggest power generation plant in Sub-Saharan Africa shutting in 630MW of electricity appears to have compounded the woes of small businesses and households.
The development left many parts of Lagos and its environs in total blackout as SMEs who are struggling to survive had to deploy a larger part of their meagre profit into petrol and diesel purchase.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) explained that the inferno has led to load shedding as many Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) operators, who spoke to Daily Sun, lamented their frustration, saying the setback to power generation has led to increase in the cost of production and services.
A barbing salon operator in New Oko-Oba, Seyi Ajibade, explained that between Wednesday and Sunday, he has spent over N5,000 in the purchase of petrol, saying prior to the collapse and load shedding, he spent an average of N3,000 for the same period of days.
‘‘We know that before the announcement of power plant collapse, electricity supply has been intermittent but we are still coping. But this total blackout is a major setback for us because all our profit is used in buying fuel. Unfortunately, we cannot increase the cost of our service.
Another SME operator who is into confectionary, Mrs. Adenike Ogunlade, lamented the state of the country’s power sector, saying over 80 per cent of her revenue is used in sourcing alternative power supply.
She disclosed that a litre of diesel now costs over N500, worrying that the fire incident at the power plant has doubled her cost of production because she has to run her generator all through her production period.
Meanwhile, the re-injection of about 220MW of electricity into the national grid by Egbin Power Plc has proved insufficient for the power needs of Lagos and its environs.
The 220MW electricity generation is on the heels of resumption of plant operations at the weekend following the fire incident. Egbin power plant has a generating capacity of 1,320MW.
But the Group Managing Director of Sahara Power, owners of the Egbin Power Plc, Mr. Kola Adesina, in a telephone interview at the weekend maintained that the operation at the power plant was still partial as plans are ongoing to raise the output capacity 660MW before Monday.
However, findings by the Daily Sun on Sunday revealed that the power plant as at 1.44pm had yet to meet the 660MW targets.
The inability to meet the 660MW has left many homes and businesses out of power supply with majority still running on generator, while the load shedding continues.
TCN General Manger, Public Affairs, Mrs Ndidi Mbah, in a statement at the weekend said the shutdown of the units at Egbin means a total of 630MW was removed from the grid.
“The removal of 630MW from the grid at the same time means that TCN had to strive to ensure that it achieved generation load balance to maintain the stability of the grid.
“This, it did by reducing bulk electricity to Lagos, to avoid overloading the 330kV lines within the state, while the third unit at the Shiroro station was tied. These were necessary to avoid the collapse of the nation’s grid,” the company explained.
