Fashola Commissions Mayo Belwa TCN Substation, Mulls N72b DisCos’ Funding

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has commissioned a 132/33KV transmission substation with a 40MVA transformer at Mayo Belwa town in Adamawa state.
Fashola also announced a decision of the Federal Government to invest N72 billion as a shareholder loan and intervention to the 11 Distribution Companies.
After the power sector privatisation in 2013, government retained 40 per cent stake in the 11 DisCos while private equity accounts for 60 per cent.
The envisaged shareholder loan would be the first intervention loan to the DisCos directly from government shareholder since the privatisation of the sector.
Federal Government had in 2017 introduced a N701.9bn Payment Assurance Guarantee to the Generation Companies to boost their liquidity and generate more electricity.
The Central Bank of Nigeria has been disbursing a loan of N213bn under its Nigerian Electricity Market Stabilisation Fund to about 47 power firms including the DisCos since 2015.
The Minister, represented by the Permanent Secretary (Power), Louis Edozien, urged  the 11 DisCos to invest more in their networks to complement TCN’s  grid expansion following the envisaged  N72bn commitment from government.
Fashola said with the new 40MVA (32MW capacity) Mayo Belwa substation, over seven towns of the state including Mayo Belwa, Numan, Jada and Lamorde would witness improved electricity delivery with the commissioning of the substation.
He added the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing complemented the TCN project by installing distribution transformers in the franchise area.

He said: “With this development, TCN has not only improved the quality of power in this area but it has also increased the wheeling capacity of TCN which was last simulated in December 2017 to be above 7,000 megawatts.”
He noted that TCN has acquired land to upgrade the new substation to a 330/132/33KV substation and the 132/33KV Jalingo substation to carry more power to sates in the North East.
He said while the procurement has advanced, the 330/132/33KV Yola substation would be upgraded by 350MVA capacity as a 150MVA, and two units of 100MVA transformers will be installed along with other equipment.
To improve power supply in the northeast, Fashola said the administration has resolved hurdles in completing the 40MW Dadin Kowa hydropower plant in Gombe state.
He also said TCN would install Static Var Compensator in Gombe to improve the quality of power in the region.
Meanwhile, the Managing Director of TCN, Mohammed Gur-Usman has also disclosed that the company would attain a transmission capacity of 9,000MW by end of 2018.
Mohammed disclosed this while speaking with newsmen in Yola.
He said the on-going rehabilitation of transmission projects and the building of new transmission stations and substation would result in an increased capacity of the company to wheel more electricity to Nigerians.
Gur-Usman said TCN was no longer the weakest links in the value chain given its rehabilitation and expansion programme.