We supply 24 hours electricity to Togo, Benin – TCN

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) said it supplies 24-hour electricity to Togo, Benin and Niger.

The TCN Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Sule Abdulaziz, disclosed this while speaking on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics programme.

“We supply Togo, we supply Benin and Niger. Yes, they get power from Nigeria on a 24-hour basis and they are paying,” Mr Abdulaziz said.

Speaking on the issue of unstable power supply in Nigeria, he said, “Nigerians are getting 24-hour electricity supply; not everybody. Those people in Band A. You will see that they get a 20-22 hour power supply. Some Nigerians are getting 24 hours. Every distribution company has Band A and that is their priority.”

Nigeria’s transmission system needs investment

He explained that the transmission system needs a lot of investment, noting that the power sector has been neglected for many years.

“For so many years in this country that sector has been neglected. Most of the equipment we use is 50 years or 40 years old. So it is not possible for those infrastructure to work perfectly,” he said.

On what the company is doing to prevent incessant grid collapse, Mr Abdulaziz said it will implement a backup system to prevent nationwide blackouts.

“We are doing the SCADA system for the whole network and it is funded by the World Bank, and the project will take two years to be completed, and now, we have done 70 per cent of the project.

“Almost a month ago, we were at Gwagwalada (in Abuja) with the World Bank where we celebrated the project. It is 70 per cent completed. Once we have the SCADA system, it will reduce the frequency of getting system disturbances.

“We are trying to upgrade all our transmission lines,” he said, adding that though the government might not have enough money for the project, the TCN has been working in partnership with private companies to mobilise funds.

“The honourable minister is now working with the presidency to have that approval. This is what we call the super grid. By the time we have it, even if there is a fault in one transmission line, you can switch to the one so that we have an alternative but now, the type of grid we have, once we have a problem with the line, you have no other line to switch on to,” he said.

In recent years, the power sector has experienced many challenges in areas of electricity policy enforcement, regulatory uncertainty, gas supply, transmission system constraints, and significant power sector planning shortfalls.

In November 2013, the federal government privatised all power generation and 11 distribution companies, with the government retaining the ownership of the transmission company. This was to improve efficiency in the sector.

However, since the privatisation, the grid has continued to collapse amid efforts to reposition the power sector.

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The latest collapse was the third in a week.

Last Tuesday, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the last election, Peter Obi, described Nigeria’s electricity grid collapse as “a national shame.”

Mr Obi described the incident as the failure of leadership and policy implementation.