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The federal government has fixed January 2027 as the target date to begin replacing ageing infrastructure across the national electricity grid in a fresh effort to improve power supply across the country.
Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, disclosed this on Monday during an interview on a TVC television programme, saying the exercise would follow a technical audit of the power sector to identify faulty equipment and facilities requiring urgent attention.
“So in the next one or two months, we will commence infrastructure replacement across our grid. President Tinubu is extremely supportive of what we are doing,” he said.
Tegbe identified the transmission network as the biggest challenge facing the power sector, noting that some electricity transmission lines had been in operation for as long as 50 years.
He said the ministry had been conducting a comprehensive technical audit for about a month to establish the condition of existing facilities and ensure that funds were spent on the most critical areas.
“I’m a systems person. So do a technical audit of the entire power sector. And today, we’ve gone about one month into the technical audit. We’ve seen some of the results,” he said.
According to him, preliminary findings had revealed faults in different components of the transmission network, including towers, insulators and conductor relays.
“There are places where it is towers that have issues. There are places where it’s insulators. There are places where it’s a conductor relay.
“What you don’t want to do is start spending money on insulators when you are meant to fix a conductor relay. Now we’re getting a clear picture,” he explained.
The minister also identified gas supply challenges as another major obstacle to stable electricity generation, despite Nigeria’s abundant natural gas reserves.
He said financial difficulties within the gas supply chain, including unpaid debts to electricity generation companies (GenCos), had affected their ability to purchase gas for power plants.
Tegbe put the outstanding obligations at N3.3 trillion, disclosing that the Federal Government had paid N1.23 trillion in recent months, leaving about N2 trillion outstanding.
“In the last few months, we’ve paid down N1.23 trillion. We only have N2 trillion left. That N2 trillion, hopefully next year,” he said. He urged agencies in the power sector to work together to address the challenges rather than engage in disagreements over the causes of poor electricity supply.
“We have gas as a nation. However, sometimes, that liquidity issue becomes a constraint,” he said.
The minister added that some electricity generation plants were also ageing, making it necessary to replace obsolete facilities with newer ones.
He said the government was working to address weaknesses in gas supply, generation and transmission infrastructure to improve electricity delivery to Nigerians.
