Energy Briefs
THE federal government is set to decentralise the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN. Usman Mohammed, managing director, TCN, said two independent companies were set to emerge from the company, but fails to give timeline when the wind-down would be concluded.
Mohammed, who spoke at a stakeholders’ interactive forum, explained that the process of splitting the company into two has begun. He said the TCN would spend $5 million to digitise its substations’ control rooms across the country.
He stated that the interactive forum came at a time the MO was enforcing the sector’s Market Rules and instilling discipline amongst market participants. “Our intention is to midwife TCN in such a way that TCN will cease to exist. There will be a separate Transmission Service Provider, TSP, and the Independent System Operation, ISO, will be with the MO. I am doing everything possible for that,” he said.
According to Mohammed, the planned split can only be successful when the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, SCADA, and the Electricity Management System, EMS, were in place. He said TCN is procuring fibre optic for some critical lines towards attaining SCADA system for the electricity market.
“Fixing SCADA will take about two years, so we have segmented it to start with the Automated Meter Reading, AMR, where all energy will be accurately metered, and every market participant will have access to that.”
Mohammed disclosed that the TCN was earning from South Africa’s Eskom Power about their SCADA after it had failed repeatedly to procure one for Nigeria. “Nigeria has failed three times and if this time fails, it will be the fourth time,” Mohammed noted.
To ensure the SCADA procurement would be successful, he said the TCN will be training 15 staff who will be bonded to TCN until after five years. According to him, five each will be trained on the software, hardware and the communication aspects.
“We are going to train them anywhere in the world, even if it will cost us N$3 million, we will do it,” he said, while informing that TCN would spend $5 million in digitising its control rooms across the substations nationwide to enhance the SCADA operation.
– Aug. 23, 2019 @ 14:25 GMT |
Tags: FG to decentralise TCN into 2 companies
