Monday 27 January 2014

Power supply drops by 300mw

                        
Electricity consumers got a piece of bad news yesterday. Supply will further drop because generation is down by 300 megawatts (mw). The drop is as a result of the shutdown of Shiroro Power Station – one of the nation’s major electricity generation stations – in Niger State, for maintenance and repairs. Since the takeover of electricity supply and distribution by private companies, supplies have reduced drastically. Businesses are grumbling and citizens are groaning as the weather is harsh because the rains are yet to come.

But the government has maintained that the situation is due to initial hitches which will soon be taken care of.
The Transmission Company of Nigerian (TCN) explained yesterday that the closure of Shiroro would allow the engineering maintenance crew of the Shiroro Power Station rectify faults.



The statement said: “The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has said that there will be unavoidable drop in the quantity of power available for TCN to transmit to the Distribution Companies because Shiroro Power Plc has announced that its Power Station will be shut down for three days, from Monday, 27th to Wednesday, 29th January, 2014.

“The shutdown of the station is to enable the engineering maintenance crew of the Shiroro Power Station rectify ground fault on the Stations Carbon Dioxide Control Panel, which provides vital auxiliary services necessary for the running of the power plant.”

The Control Panel is a fire protection scheme for all the units in the power station. If it is out on repairs, all the units in the station would have no protection against fire, hence the need to shut down all the units of the power plant, TCN said.

“During the period, grid generation will reduce by 300MW, hence the nationwide load shedding. The impact of the load shedding would be higher in the Northern axis of the nation, especially Kano, due to voltage instability issues previously affecting power supply in that axis.

“TCN sincerely apologised for inconvenience the planned load shedding would cause the Federal Government and our highly esteemed electricity consumers nationwide, during the period, and assures that it will continue to work with the power generating stations and distribution companies nationwide, to improve and stabilise the power supply situation in the nation.”

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