The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has said that efforts were on top gear to increase the wheeling capacity of the national grid from 7, 000 megawatts to 9, 000mw before the end of 2018.
This was made known by the Interim Managing Director of TCN, Usman Gur Mohammed, during stakeholders interactive forum in Nasarawa State.
According to him, the company intended to embark on massive re-conductoring of transmission lines this year, noting that the plan is to significantly increase the wheeling capacity of TCN (between 2,000MW to 3,000MW).
He added that TCN was already in discussion with World Bank to use the balance under Nigeria Electricity and Gas Improvement Project (NEGIP), to procure the conductors, iwin reports.
He said: “The Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Programme(TREP), which you strongly supported seeks to stabilise, expand and provide the needed flexibility to the Distribution Companies, (DISCOs, for them to effectively supply to their customers.”
“The TREP programme has attracted significant interest from several donors. One of the donors, which has signifed interest in TREP is the World Bank with the sum of $486 million. The Federal Ministry of Finance concluded the negation of NETAP last month.
“TREP also includes strategies for completing existing projects, either through in-house capacity or through the fast-tracking existing contracts. Through this process, several transformers and sub-stations will be completed in the first quarter of 2018,” he stated.
He further said that, as part of the strategy of TREP, NEGIP, which was implemented for eight years, had 50 percent disbursement rate, as at February 2017, adding that the disbursement rate had increased to 80 percent between February to November 2017 (30 percent in less than a year).
