The Federal Government has met with the management of Siemens Energy in Germany to fast track the delivery of the mobile substations and transformers ordered through the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI) to improve and stabilize electricity across the country.
The Minister of Power, Engr Abubakar Aliyu, on Tuesday met with the Dr Christian Bruch, President/CEO of Siemens Energy at the Siemens Energy Headquarters in Berlin, to review the progress of the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI).
EnergyDay gathered that contract for the Procurement of Ten (10) mobile transformers and Ten (10) mobile substations was awarded to Siemens in December 2021 by FGN Power Company.
The meeting in Germany according to the Power Ministry was part of tthe first phase of the programme under the PPI’s targeted at increasing the power country’s generation capacity from its present state to about 25,000 megawatts.
According to the Minister , the mobile substations and transformers through Siemens will help to enhance electricity supply by removing the bottlenecks in transmission and distribution networks.
EnergyDay gathered that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on December 16, 2021 approved the procurement of Mobile Units (Transmission Substations and Power Transformers) for early works of Phase 1 of PPI.
Apart from the FG’s initial commitment of N8.6billion toward the project, Siemens is facilitating finance for the project for the deal which is in three(3) different phases through the German Export Credit Agency (Euler Hermes AG), other ECA’s, and other financing Agencies,
The FGN Power Company, a firm which was incorporated in August 2020, as a special purpose vehicle to execute the PPI mandate, was charged with the responsibilities of coordinating the implementation of the PPI, with Phase 1 delivering 2,000MW in the first two years by focusing on “quick wins” measures to increase end-to-end operational capacity to 7,000MW from the current capacity of about 5GW.
FGNPC was also saddled with the responsibility of coordinating the Phase 2 of the project with the aims of expanding the capacity of the transmission and distribution system to enable evacuation up to 11,000MW,
The Phase 3 also targets power grid expansion up to 25,000MW through further expansion of generation, transmission, and distribution systems.
According to the FGNPC, the entire deal will lead to the upgrade of 105 sub-stations, construction of 70 new sub-stations and installation of 35 power transformers.
It was also gathered that the entire project is aimed at installation of about 3,765 distribution transformers and 5,109 km distribution lines are expected to be built with a potential generation capacity of over 13,000mw as opposed to the current transmission of 4,500mw.
By Oredola Adeola
