“Willing Buyer” “Willing Seller’’ Policy will address load rejection in power sector –expert

Thu, Dec 12, 2019
By publisher
3 MIN READ

Power

AN Electricity expert  says the “Willing buyer’’ Willing seller’’ policy introduced by the Federal Government would address the challenge of load rejection and accelerate growth in the power sector.

Mr Kunle Olubiyo, the President Nigeria Consumer Protection Network, a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) said this in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday.

NAN reports that the Federal Government had on Dec. 4 introduced the new electricity distribution policy in order to wheel electricity directly from the generation companies to willing consumers who were ready to pay for it.

Under the new differential power distribution policy, the willing consumers may include community and commercial clusters, industrial areas and hospitality sectors.

The policy was designed to save energy losses in the power sector and assist generation companies that have not been getting the full payment for their generated power.’’

The policy has already taken off as a pilot scheme in two states.

He said that the policy would address the load rejection which was a major problem in the sector

According to him, the policy is basically to allow for cost recovery and it is also an incentive for growth in the power sector.

“For each load generated to the grid, if DisCos pick 70 per cent, “Willing Buyer’’ “Willing Seller’’ then picks 30 per cent at the girding rate, that definitely will be a good business instead of load rejection.

“We generate electricity capacity of 13,000 and the average load that is being picked is between 2,500 to 4,000, which is not too good,’’ he said.

According to him, if DisCos pick a load of 10,000, they can give out 7, 000 to a “Willing Buyer’’ “Willing Seller’’ and use the remaining 3,000 at girding rate, it will increase growth in the sector.

Olubiyo said that the rates were not going to be the same as the DisCos and consumers would have the liberty to negotiate what was accessible to them.

“Some industries can access power from the grid which is cheaper than the cost of diesel.

“Once there is competition, there will be room for negotiation and we will be moving toward market driven power sector that is the essence of the initiative,’’ he said.

He said that while the Federal Government was pursuing the  “Willing Buyer’’ “Willing Seller’’ policy, it was also important that agencies of government should focus on investment in renewable energy.

Olubiyo said that agencies like the Niger-Delta Power Holding should focus on investment in renewable energy so that a lot of people could have power that was driven by clean technology.

“Each senatorial district in the country should have off-grid power generation that will be hybrid and best suitable for that area at the rate of 10 megawatts.

NAN

– Dec. 12, 2019 @ 19:39 GMT |

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