. Grid power stranded at 2,535MW, throws GENCOs, FG into bickering
Major stakeholders in Nigeria’s electricity value chain have absolved the 11 distribution companies of complicity in the epileptic power supply rocking the country. The stakeholders including those in the generation, transmission and distribution strata of the industry, maintained in different interviews that what is currently rattling the country’s electricity sector is the low generation, which has made the grid power to be stranded at 2,535MW.
The Executive Director, Research and Advocacy, Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED), Sunday Oduntan, Discos said, “We believe that there would be a remedy, as apparently we (DisCos) are given little to distribute. For us to have a more efficient power to supply, we need to have a better generation to satisfy the country.
“We cannot do more than what is given us. Currently, the TCN brought the crisis to the fore and in the power value chain we just collect and give out what is collected.”
Corroborating Oduntan’s view, the GENCOs said they are unable to maintain their machines and pay gas suppliers which has resulted in low power generation for the grid.
The Executive Secretary of the Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC), Dr. Joy Ogaji m, who said this, maintained that lack of payment was hindering the operations of the GENCOs.
“The hope we can give to Nigerians is that let the government pay our outstanding. The moment they pay, we will pay our gas suppliers, we will be able to quickly do the maintenance and we will produce again. We are in the business of production. That is something we know how to do.
“It is ‘money for hand, power for the grid. Why is it that hydro’s (plants) are in maintenance, thermals are also in maintenance? The machines are down; units have been damaged by surges. A lot of destructions on our machines and we are not compensated for that destruction even the power you have taken, you are not paying for it”, she added. But the government has rejected the claims by the GENCOs saying they have been paid as at when due.
The Head Corporate Communication, Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Company Plc, Henrietta Ighomrore, however, said the GENCOs have always been paid as at when due.
Ighomrore explained that in the last payment cycle, the GENCOs were paid N38 billion are due for second tranche soon.
She said: “What the GENCOs are saying is not an accurate picture in the market. Last month when we treated the December 2021 payment cycle, based on the market receipt from the DISCOs by NBET, we made about N38 billion payments to the GENCOs for electricity distributed on the grid and that is the first tranche of payments.
“We normally make about three tranches of payments, one is the market receipt and then there is the supplementary and then there is the part payment which takes care of tariff shortfall”.
She explained that NBET has paid the GENCOs about 90 percent of their invoices, noting that the company pays the GENCOs almost immediately remittances from the DISCOs were received.
