By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan
The Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu has disclosed that the renewed hope agenda of President Bola Tinubu is to ensure that electricity is taken to every nook and cranny of Nigeria .
Chief Adelabu said this on Wednesday, during an inspection tour of Kashimbilla hydro power plant in Taraba State and the 56 km, 132KV transmission line from Yandev to Makurdi in Benue State
The minister according to a statement by his Special Adviser on Strategic Communications and Media Relations, Mr Bolaji Tunji hinted that more effort is geared towards improving power generating capacity across the power plants.
Chief Adelabu stated that the Kashimbilla hydro power plant in Taraba State and the 56 km, 132KV transmission line from Yandev to Makurdi in Benue State project is in line with the renewed hope agenda of Mr. President in ensuring that electricity is taken to every nook and cranny of the country.
He pointed out that the Kashimbilla Power plant with its state-of- the art technology which includes automated tracking and monitoring system (SCADA), is working effectively and that the 132/33KV substation in Amua, Gboko local government area, Benue State are working perfectly well and generating 100 per cent of the installed capacity.
” The power plant has an installed capacity of 40 megawatts but only 10 megawatts is presently being evacuated.This inspection visit is to ensure accelerated completion of the facilities in order to ensure the remaining 30 megawatts is evacuated”, he said.
Chief Minister added, ” We have begun the process and we have the assurance of the Contractors that this would be completed within the next six months to one year”.
The Minister noted that once the evacuation infrastructure is completed, the four turbines would evacuate the 40 megawatts, effectively”, adding, ” the moment
we are done with the evacuation infrastructure the stranded 30 megawatts will be evacuated, the entire four turbines will be working at full capacity of 10 megawatts each to make 40 megawatts and this will increase the generation capacity that will be evacuated into the national grid”.
Expressing displeasure that 30 megawatts is stranded, the Minister said it is not economically good for the country, hence the need to ensure the accelerated completion of the evacuation infrastructure.
The Managing Director of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Engr. Sule Ahmed Abdulazeez while speaking said that efforts are in top gear to make sure that the 132KV transmission line from Yandev to Apir in Markudi, is finished, adding, ” By the time that transmission line is ready, we can evacuate all the power from the Kashimbilla plant”.
The Director, Renewable and Rural Access Department, Engr. Abubarka Ali-Dapshima on his part noted that the scope of the 2nd phase is to evacuate the 40MW completely to the grid, saying.”The beautiful thing about this project is that it is a renewable energy project which has the ability to mitigate the issues of climate change
