The federal government of Nigeria has embarked on a massive project under the Presidential Power Initiative (formerly the Nigeria Electrification Roadmap) which was formed between the government of Nigeria and that of Germany back in 2018, to upgrade and expand its electricity transmission and distribution network in the course of the next five years.
The project, of which the government of the West African country has already entered into a deal with Siemens AG and committed to an initial US$ 22M investment, includes the upgrading of 105 power substations, construction of 70 new ones, distribution of up to 35 new transfomers as well as installation of distribution lines.
Execution of the project
The PPI project will be undertaken in three phases. The first phase is focused on “quick-win” measures to increase the end-to-end operational capacity of the country’s electricity grid to 7 GW between 2020 and 2021. It entails upgrade of existing substations, construction of containerized GIS Substations, as well as the development of 132/33 kV Mobile Substations and installation of 132/33 kV (60 MVA) Transformers and transmission lines.
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Phase two targets to achieve 11gw between 2021-2023, with full use of existing generation and last-mile distribution capacity while phase three would see the achievement of the planned 25gw between 2023-2025 with appropriate upgrades and expansion in the generation, transmission, and distribution.
Siemens AG will be working hand in hand with the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and Distribution Companies (Discos) in the country throughout the entire project which would see the installation of 3,765 distribution transformers and 5,109 km distribution lines with a potential transmission capacity of over 13,000 MW as opposed to the current 4,500mw.
The objective of the project
The transmission and distribution network upgrade and expansion project are meant to address the imbalance between power generation, evacuation, dispatch, and consumption, which has been a major challenge for the population of Nigeria.
Over 13 GW of grid power generation capacity is installed in the country but sadly on average, only about 3.4 GW reaches consumers.
It’s all nice to project/target “11gw between 2021-2023, with full use of existing generation and last-mile distribution capacity while phase three would see the achievement of the planned 25gw between 2023-2025 with appropriate upgrades and expansion in the generation, transmission, and distribution.”
The question is, what is daily power requirement/need in Nigeria? Is it 25GW? Or 100GW? I posit that until this is determined and known, whatever planning we put in place will be self-defeating! You can not plan for something you don’t know.
What is it we want to solve? When we decide or determine that, we can then plan adequately for it.