Yemi Olakitan with agency report
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has explained why Nigeria sells electricity to other countries. TCN said the deal provides an avenue to earn more foreign currency for national development.
This comes as Nigerians continue to be concerned about the continued exportation of electricity to neighbouring countries despite a shortage in the national supply.
At the Nigerian Power Consumers Forum, the Managing Director of TCN, Sule Abdulaziz, revealed this information and confirmed that “Nigeria, through TCN, had been exporting electricity to Niger, Benin, and Togo under a country-to-country arrangement.”
In a statement that was released after the event by the Lead, Advocacy Team, of the Nigerian Power Consumers Forum, Malam Yusuf Bako, Abdulaziz was cited as a speaker.
Abdulaziz, who is also the Chairman of the Executive Board of the West African Power Pool (WAPP), stated that the regional market would further enable generation companies (GenCos) to export power to more West African countries and that this power would be evacuated by TCN transmission infrastructure.
According to him, the Federal Government may be able to earn more foreign currency for the country’s overall development if it engages in the practice of power exportation.
In order to enhance the functioning of the national grid, according to Abdulaziz, TCN has implemented a high-tech plan known as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Virtual Private Network (VPN) as a stopgap solution.
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According to him, the technology would enhance the real-time operations of the national grid, which would be beneficial in the interim until a long-term network automation system could be implemented.
His exact words were as follows: “We have gone far with the procurement of new Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)/Energy Management System (EMS) schemes, but we felt as a responsible company that is waiting for the new SCADA, we can deploy a stop-gap technology which we have understudied in other countries to be very efficient in boosting real-time electricity grid monitoring,” he said. “We have come this far with the procurement of new Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)
The CEO of TCN stated that the company had been able to reduce the number of instances in which the system completely failed thanks to improved collaboration with other players in the value chain of the electricity industry.
In addition, Abdulaziz disclosed that TCN was in the process of constructing two new national control centres in the cities of Abuja and Osogbo. He stated that the installation of control centres would further improve the reliability of the electricity grid in Nigeria.
He believes that the National Control Centre, along with various other technological systems, will lead to an improvement in the reliability of the national grid.
“This preparation comes at a time when Nigerian power operators are gearing up to take part in electricity export as soon as the Regional Electricity Market (REM) of the West African Power Pool (WAPP) is launched,” he said. “This preparation comes at a time when Nigerian power operators are gearing up to take part in electricity export.”
Micheal Okoh, the convener of the Nigerian Power Consumers Forum (NPCF), stated that the only way to help power consumers is to make such critical investments in the power transmission grid, backed by the matching strength at the end of the distribution companies.
Okoh stated that the stop-gap solution has been implemented in some other countries, such as the Benin Republic, and that implementing it in Nigeria was better than implementing it too late.
“This has been a long overdue necessity because it is difficult to manage the rapidly expanding system if the grid or system operator does not have comprehensive operational data for the entire power grid,” he said. “This has been a long overdue necessity.”
