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Aba Power Electric says it has started to lose about 50MW daily from 9 am to 5 pm as a result of the ongoing maintenance of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) facilities in Abia State.
The TCN scheduled a one-week maintenance exercise to refurbish its infrastructure, leading to hours of power outage in certain areas in the South-east state.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelThe Aba Power which is Nigeria’s 12th electricity distribution company (DisCo), assured that it is doing everything within its power to ensure that power is restored to most of the areas affected by the outage.
The Aba Power Brand and Communication manager, Edise Ekong, said if TCN had responded to the company’s letter seeking permission to provide electricity to certain areas like Opobo Road, Obingwa, Ikot Ekpene Road, Ukwa West, and East, among others, from its 188 megawatts power plants located in the Osisioma Industrial Zone, the outage being experienced would not have reached the level it is.
The blackout also affected other places such as Aba City Centre, Ogbor Hill, Isiala Ngwa Local Government Area, Waterside, Umuode, and Ugwunagbo.
“If the TCN replies to our letter even right now, we will restore electricity to most of these areas within minutes”, Ekong restated.
The power firm apologised to its numerous customers for the blackout.
“Aba Power and its parent company, Geometric Power, have acted as proactively as possible,” Ekong stated.
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Ekong clarified that though Geometric Power Plant has enough capacity to generate and distribute the 100MW required in the Aba Ringfence which comprises nine of the 19 LGAs in Abia State, it imports electricity from the Niger Delta Power Holding Company of Nigeria (NDPHC) due to insufficient gas supply from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and its business partner.
According to sources in the company who do not want their names in the media because they are not allowed to speak to the press on the matter, Aba Power pays over two billion naira (N2bn) monthly to the NDPHC which supplies electricity to Aba Power through the TCN.
Aba Power Managing Director, Ugo Opiegbe, disclosed that the Geometric Power Group is making an arrangement to obtain more gas supplies.
“Once we begin to receive more supplies to run our gas turbines, we will become more autonomous, that is, less dependent on the external environment, with all its caprices and volatilities,” Opiegbe told journalists recently.
“For now, we will continue to work closely with other electricity organisations in the interests of not just our customers in the Aba Ringfence but also the entire Nigerian people who benefit directly or indirectly from our work in Aba, the heart of Nigeria’s Indigenous manufacturing.”
