*Pix above(r-l):PBAT and Chief Adebayo Adelabu, Power Minister
The Federal Government on Wednesday revealed plans to boost Nigeria’s electric power supply by 150MW before 2024 ends.
The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, disclosed this to State House correspondents after a business session at the State House during the state visit of the German President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to President Bola Tinubu.
“So we believe that before the end of the year, an additional 150MW of capacity is going to be added upon completion of the entire pilot phase,” Adelabu said while explaining the implementation of the Presidential Power Initiative agreement.
On December 1, 2023, the Nigeria and Germany signed the Presidential Power Initiative agreement to inject 12,000 MegaWatts of electricity into the national grid.
The signing was presided over by the leaders of both countries, President Bola Tinubu of Nigeria and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, on the sidelines of the United Nations Climate Change Summit, COP28, in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.
Managing Director of the Federal Government of Nigeria Power Company, Kenny Anuwe, and the Managing Director (Africa), Siemens AG, Nadja Haakansson, signed the agreement.
Adelabu, who attended the business session, said, “The game now is about cooperation, collaboration and partnership. The flagship of this bilateral relationship has to do with what we call the Siemens project, which is our Presidential Power Initiative where Siemens is implementing the Brownfield and Greenfield transmission substations of the Presidential Power initiative.
“Since signing the agreement in Dubai at COP 28 in December 2023, we have made significant progress. We have completed the pilot phase of this project, up to 80 per cent.
“This involves the importation, installation and commissioning of 10 power transformers and 10 power mobile substations. They’ve been imported. They’ve been installed, and lots of them have been commissioned. We have just about two left to be commissioned before the end of the year.”
He added, “The project had added at least 750 megawatts to our transmission grid capacity, which is why the relative stability we are seeing in the grid today is the direct positive impact of the pilot stage completion.”
His comments came hours after the national grid collapsed for the 12th time in 2024.
Grid failures are not strange in one of Africa’s largest economies, whose power sector still suffers gross underinvestment, says the Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Olu Verheijen.///
FG plans additional 150MW to national grid by year-end
