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From Tony Osauzo and Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin
The Minister of Power, Mr. Adebayo Adelabu, yesterday, lamented that despite the huge investment of the federal government in the power sector, it is still being under utilized.
The Minister who bemoaned the power situation during his tour of Ihovbo Power Plants in Edo State, disclosed that the Federal Government has invested so much money in the energy sector but that it is a pity that Nigerians are still battling with issues of light.
“I have gone round this installation and I am quite impressed with what we have here. Contrary to general belief, Nigeria has invested so much in power generating plants and these plants are the state of the arts plants, they are well maintained, they are in a very good conditions and they are in a condition that can give us the kind of power generation that we need in this country, except that there are a lot of capacity distortions.
“I will take them one after the other. I got to the Ihovbo plants which belongs to the federal government under the Niger Delta Power Holding Company, it is a plant with four gas plants, in a very good condition, with a capacity of about 125 megawatt each which is a total of 500 megawatt.
“They are well maintained plants and the running hours of each of these, they are all below 30,000, which means that, effectively, they have not been run more than three years even though they have been installed almost eight or 10 years ago, they are as brand as new turbines but surprisingly, is only one turbine that is operational today, generating about a 100 megawatt of power as against the installed capacity of 500.
“That is just 20 percent capacity utilization and which is a gross lack of optimization of our investment as a country if we have put in so much into establishing these power plants, it should be able to give us the kind of power that we require”, Adelabu said.
The Minister assured Nigerians that all the problems bedeviling the sector will soon be a thing of the past.
“Like I have mentioned in the number of my past interviews, that the militating fact is actually the shortage in gas supply which we are actually working on and the good news I will like to mention here is that succour is close to o us, relief is close to these power plants as the federal government with the federal ministry of finance, federal ministry of budget and economic planing and federal ministry of power, we have met with the Mr. President and he has mandated us to go and work out how we are going to defray the outstanding debts being owed”, Adelabu added.
