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Nigeria’s electricity generation companies have threatened to shut down their power plants if the challenges facing them are not addressed.
According to the Executive Secretary of the body, Joy Ogaji, the challenges facing the companies included liquidity issues, power rejection by the electricity distribution companies and gas constraints.
Ms. Ogaji, speaking on behalf of the Association of Power Generation Companies, said the decline in available generation capability could also be traced to these challenges being faced by Gencos.
“Few of the thermal power plants were out due to planned maintenance, which is allowed in the sector,’ the APGC official said. “The decline was not an act of rebellion by the Gencos neither was it deliberate but was beyond their control.
“This should serve as a wake-up call to the Federal Government to the goings-on in the industry with regards to the Gencos and if the actions are not taken by the necessary agencies, Gencos will be forced to shut down business.”
The official added that, “Afam Power Plc (Afam VI Gas/Steam), GT12, 13 and ST10 power plants were shut down for a period of about 16 days due to planned maintenance that was carried out by the gas suppliers on their facilities. Although Afam Power Plc was duly notified about the maintenance, it resulted in a reduction of Afam’s available generation capability from about 490MW to zero.”
Ms. Ogaji said that available generation capability plunged to 5,207.57 megawatts last December from 7,238.12MW in November, while average generation rose slightly to 4,162.47MW from 4,093.76MW.
She said within the period, most of the plants built under the National Integrated Power Project, including Alaoji, Sapele, Olorunsogo, and Omotosho, suffered from gas constraints.
“Some of the companies’ generation capability dropped to zero due to the outage of their power plants which was as a result of gas constraints,” she said, adding that Jebba Power Station’s generation capability reduced by about 110MW to 360MW due to low load demand.
