Egbin Power Company To Invest In Katsina

Egbin Power Company is planning to explore opportunities in renewable energy sources in Katsina, Adamawa, Borno  and other states in the Northeastern and Northcentral parts of the country.

It’s Chairman, Mr Kola Adesina, who made this known during a stakeholders’ forum in Lagos, said the decision to invest in renewable energy in those states was borne out of the desire to help  improve electricity generation and distribution capacity in the country.

He said: ‘’We would be building renewable energy plants in Adamawa, Katsina, Borno and other states, in line with our goals to improve power supply in the country. The renewable energy initiative would help in providing electricity to some sections of the populace that do not have access to grid electricity transmission. Our vision is to electrify Nigeria, and we have been nominated on the Committee that is charged with the responsibility of Lightening Up Lagos.”

He explained that infrastructure has been a major problem in the sector, arguing that failure of the operators to get the requited equipment for power generation and distribution is affecting growth of the industry.

Adesina said his firm would establish power industrial park, through which stakeholders in the value chain would be getting materials needed for production.

According to him, the industrial park would be similar to the parks, which the Federal Government, has approved for the oil and gas sector.

‘’Our plan is to build industrial power for the electricity sector, as soon as we overcome our challenges. The park would help in fast-tracking the growth of the sector, by increasing the electricity generation and distribution output” he added.

He said power is one of the three critical sectors that should be developed to move the economic forward, urging the Federal Government to help grow the industry.

Adesina explained that the sector, especially the operators are grappling with huge debts, arguing that the issue has not allowed them to produce the desired growth.

He appealed to the government to help Egbin Power Company, recover debts in the course of running its plant.

The foreign exchange market, he said, is unfavourable, in view of the fact that the value of the naira has fallen drastically.

He noted that, naira which was exchanged for N159 to a dollar few years ago, when investors were buying the assets of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), now sell for N197 per dollar at the official market.

This, he said, made operators to spend more on importation of raw materials, with its undesirable consequences on the industry.

this in line with the Federal Government’s decision to boost power supply via generating 33,000 gigawatts (Gwh) of electricity through renewable energy sources,

It would be recalled that the Federal Government adopted the Renewable Energy Target(RET) scheme few years. The scheme, adopted from Australia, was to assist Nigeria to optimally maximise its renewable energy sources. The government had broken the scheme into two namely the Small-scale Renewable Energy Target and the Large-scale Renewable Energy Target in order to allow businesses and individuals invest in the off-grid transmission in order to increase power supply in the country.