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By Adewale Sanyaolu
The Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), has disclosed plans to develop other areas of renewable energy, especially biomass and hydro power as part of its strategies to increase power generation across the country.
Managing Director of NDPHC, Mr. Chiedu Ugbo, disclosed made this known at a media campaign for its “Light up Nigeria” initiative in Lagos recently.
The Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited, owned by the three tiers of government, was incorporated to manage power projects under the National Integrated Power Projects (NIPP) through direct provision of infrastructural facilities, to bridge the power supply gaps in the country.
He added that NDPHC was working with some concessionaires to see what they already have on ground and also to work with them on how to bring some of these small hydro power plants on stream.
Ugbo stated that one the challenges the company was having was the fact that there are a lot of concessions going on for hydro power plants, lamenting that most of the concessionaires have not come due to absence of policy framework to enable them to execute same.
Again, he said, the company has received expression of interest from some states on hydro power and that NDPHC was currently studying some of those requests to see possible ways on how they can work.
He explained that the concession of those hydro power plants was the idea of last administration under the purview of the Ministries of Water Resources and Power and not a project under NDPHC.
On biomass, the NDPHC boss said it is one of the long term plans of the company because of the intricacies involved in getting the size of a biomass power plant which would be commensurate with the quantum of energy needed.
On the solar homes system intervention by NDPHC, he said the company has already installed 20,000 home units.
According to Ugbo, the Light up Nigeria initiative, is aimed at bridging the power supply gap in the power industry, through cost-effective electricity generated from its power plants for reliable and affordable power supply to eligible customers, Distribution companies, as well as third party project developers.
“The goal is to have ninety-seven percent availability of power to light up businesses and homes. We are doing this in collaboration with the State governments” he said
Ugbo who explained that a lot more investment was required, however said there was need for urgent private capital investment from stakeholders into the sector.
“We encounter issues such as transmission, transportation and gas supply, but we remaining n focus on ensuring that Nigerians have access to reliable and affordable power supply”
The NDPHC hlesman who noted that the agency was facing constraints in transmission, however added that the NDPHC was refocusing on expansion of sub-stations, to ease transmission and distribution of electricity.
The Director of Networks, Mr. Ifeoluwa Oyedele, said options were now available for business owners or communities who wished to migrate from the national grid.
“We have energy that can now be provided for small scale industries that are not captured on the eligible customers programme, like the big boys in Agbara Estate and the like, now the national grid can focus on residential areas, so for the subscribers, the cost of production will reduce, and this will eventually rub off on the consumers.”
Also speaking, the Director in charge of Generation, Mr Kassim Abdullahi, said NDPHC was in private partnership to ensure development of renewable energy projects, both on grid and off grid.
