Power
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VINCENT Onome Akpotaire, acting director general of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE, has commended the new owners of Eko Electricity Distribution Plc, EKEDC, on the initiatives taken to improve the quantity, quality and reliability of power supply to its customers within its network despite the shortfall in power allocation from the national grid.
Akpotaire said the initiative by the electricity distribution company, DISCO, to source for supplementary power through embedded generation options by ramping up excess power from existing captive generation within its license area and entering into bilateral agreements with Independent Power Providers would not only guarantee greater stability of supply but would also reduce the DISCO’s Aggregate Technical, Commercial and Collections Loss, ATC&C.
The BPE boss, who was represented by Leo Ene, deputy director, Post Privatisation Monitoring Department, led the Bureau’s team in continuation of periodic post-privatisation monitoring activities of the privatised PHCN successor companies on Thursday, September 22, 2016, enjoined the DISCO to improve on metering its customers. He said that improved metering of customers and the embedded generation options being explored by the DISCO would not only improve revenue collection efficiency, it would improve its distribution network and overall performance.
Oladele Amoda, managing director/chief executive officer of the Eko Electricity Distribution Company, who received the BPE monitoring team disclosed that the company with a customer population of 446, 200 (as at August 2016) is currently being allocated 11 percent of generation output (less international customers) from the grid in line with provisions of MYTO II order. He said this currently ranges from about 250MW to 350MW, which was about 500MW lower than the DISCO’s estimated suppressed demand.
He said that to meet the shortfall in the power allocation, EKEDC was in the “process of leveraging embedded generation to urgently improve supply to major load centres.” He said the aim of the EKEDC was to increase available power within a shorter time to meet suppressed demand.
Amoda further disclosed that the EKEDC had an existing bilateral agreement with Paras Energy and Natural Resources Development Limited, Paras Energy, for the supply of 40MW. He added that the DISCO’s goal was to provide at least 1200MW stable supply to its customers within its network by the end of 2018.
To improve collection efficiency and to ensure efficient service delivery to its customers, the MD disclosed that the DISCO had expended more than N11 billion on maintenance, reinforcement of its networks and metering. He added that the DISCO was currently rolling out smart metering technology with over 41, 000 customers, while the installation of the CAPMI meters is still on-going with the gradual winding down of the scheme.
While commending the efforts of the EKEDC, Ene said the DISCO was doing well when juxtaposed with the state of the distribution company when West Power & Gas Limited (WPG) took over management of the EKEDC on November 1, 2013 following the privatisation of PHCN Successor Companies. He said efforts by the company to improve on its network and collection efficiency, to eradicate technical, commercial and collection losses; a key premise of the power sector reform exercise, was one of the Key Performance Indices of the DISCO in the Performance Agreement entered into with the federal government.
— Sep 28, 2016 @ 13:58 GMT
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