International Donors Inject $1.6bn into TCN Projects in 24 Months
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has said that international donors have injected a total sum of $1.6billion to finance critical electricity transmission and distribution projects that will shortly lead to substantial improvement in electricity transportation to end-users.
The Managing Director and chief Executive officer, Mr. Usman Gur Mohammed, who stated this in Abuja in a media parley with Energy reporters said the development was sequel to TCN’s entrenched transparency and project implementation capacity under the new management.
Speaking on the projects sponsored by donor agencies, the TCN chief said the procurement process of the Abuja Ring Scheme has reached an advanced stage, adding that that two contracts for the lines have been signed and the remaining lots for substation projects have been evaluated and submitted to AFD for No Objection.
According to him, it will fund five new substations and a new 330 KV transmission line to Abuja through Lafia, stressing that the line is entirely a green field project.
The TCN boss listed the five notable projects to include: Abuja transmission ring scheme which is financed by the French Development Agency which attracted $170 million; the Nigeria Electricity Transmission Access Project (NETAP), a $486 million project financed by the World Bank; Lagos- Ogun Transmission Project, costing $200 million financed by Japanese International Agency (JICA); Northern Corridor Transmission Project to be financed by French Development Agency and European Union at $245 and €25 million respectively and Nigeria Transmission Expansion project to be financed by the African Development Bank at the cost of $410 million.
Gur Mohammed said the NETAP started with advanced procurement in 2017 and was approved by the board of the World Bank in February 2018. He stated that the procurement of the project has reached advance stage but is yet to become effective as it is still awaiting approval and legal opinion of the Attorney General and Ministry of Justice.
The project according to him is a brown field geared toward upgrading most of the transmission substations to N-1 redundancy criteria.
He said the Lagos-Ogun Project, was inherited from past management of TCN and has been completely scoped, designed, with some major aspects already completed. He noted that the project was being delayed due to issues of compensation.
They include the construction of five substations and associated 330KV and 132 KV transmission lines in Ogun state and 132 KV substation in Badagry in Lagos state. Appraisal of the Northern Corridor project was completed on September 28, 2018 and has been approved by the board of AFD and EU recently, he said.
However, the project will include building two new 330KV double circuit transmission lines; Kainji-Birnin Kebbi-Sokoto and Kastina-Daura-Gwiwa-Jogana-Kura line. It will also include the reconstruct of one out of the two old Shiroro-Kaduna 330KV single line into a quad line, and build four 330KV substations in Sokoto, Jogana and Bauchi. While the AfDB financed NTE project will involve the reconstruct of the Alaoji-Owerri-Ontisha 330 SC line and the Ughelli-Benin 330KV line into quad lines as well as the construct of 330KV quad line between Kaduna to Kano and fund several 132KV transmission lines in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states.
He commended the federal government for the improvement in electricity supply to the citizens but warned that the distribution companies must increase their investment in infrastructure without which the results of the huge investment in generation and transmission will not be noticed.
