Electricity gets boost as World Bank, AfDB, others raise $1.57bn for Nigerian grid expansion

The Managing Director of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Mr. Usman Gur Mohammed, has said that $1.57bn has been raised by multilateral donor agencies for the expansion of Nigeria’s electricity grid to 20,000 megawatts in the next four years.

Mohammed, who made this known in Abuja at recently held two-day workshop to review supervisory control and data acquisition, SCADA, and electricity management system, EMS, plans, explained that the donor agencies include the World Bank, African Development Bank, AfDB, Japan International Cooperation Agency, JICA, and French Development Agency.

He said the funds were raised for the TCN to implement its Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Programme, TREP.

He said: “When we assumed duty in February 2017, we met the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) as the weakest link in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) value chain and our objective has been to strengthen it. In order to stabilize the grid for effective service delivery in the sector, we needed to do the following.

“Raise funds to rehabilitate, expand and construct new lines and substations. Move to implement significant level of frequency control by enforcing the Free Governor Mode of Operation (FGMO) as provided for in the Grid Code. Procure the requisite’ Ancillary Services – especially the Spinning Reserve and Black Start.

“Attain mandatory effective SCADA-EMS & Telecoms facility for the SO to efficiently manage and control the Grid. Institute effective organizational structure with trained and well-motivated workforce

“In order to achieve the above, we established the Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Program (TREP) that seeks to expand and stabilize the Grid and provide necessary flexibility and redundancy consistent with N-1 Reliability criteria.”

“This is being done through the implementation of the Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Program (TREP). Through the TREP, we have been able to raise $1.57 billion”