New Telegraph

FG fingers causes of power grid collapse

The Minister of Power, Aliyu Abubakar, has said that vandalism of gas pipelines, power lines and other equipment were among the many factors responsible for the repeated collapse of the national grid. He added that inadequate water levels had also been responsible for the anomaly.

 

He said that both Kanji and Jebba power plants with a combined capacity of about 1,300MW were currently producing only 130MW to the national grid. On Sunday, the national grid collapsed for the fifth time between Match and June.

 

The minister also explained that the Federal Government and 10 states were to produce 2,000 megawatts of off-grid electricity through solar energy sources. Abubakar said: “We have policies around renewable sources of energy. We want to maintain them on the mini-grid and off-grid for the simple fact that the grid is not yet stable to take various energy mixes.

 

“We want to raise our base-load to a level where we can, later on, integrate these other sources of energy. So this is what we are doing and in that regard, we have some developers that we have just opened discussions with. We have reached a level of financial and technical evaluation with them to develop 14 projects culminating to 1,000MW of solar power. It will be off-grid. Also, about 10 state governors are trying to see to the fruition of about 1,000MW. “They are to produce 100MW each of solar power.

 

And we are also looking at other newer technologies, such as the hydrogen technology, which we are still studying and collaborating with those initiating it.” According to him, he was invited by the German Government to Nigeria where partners had a session on hydrogen technology. He said they have opened a hydrogen office in Nigeria, adding that FG was still reviewing that.

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