The Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) statutorily owned by the federal, state and local governments, is set to fully take advantage of the eligible customer framework, which will see it cut off the Distribution Companies (Discos) due to poor infrastructure and supply power directly to selected consumers.

The company has also signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to sell 70 megawatts of electricity to Togo.

In a major policy directive in 2017, the federal government had introduced four categories of eligible customers in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI), which permits electricity customers to buy power directly from the generation companies and bypass electricity distribution companies.

In a statement issued yesterday in Abuja, Head, Communication and Public Relations, NDPHC, Mrs. Funke Nwankwo, stated that the Executive Director, Generation, of the company, Mr. Kassim Abdullahi, assured consumers that the development will improve power supply to Nigerians.

Abdullahi, according to the statement, spoke during an inspection of the Calabar Power Plant in Odukpani, Cross River State, one of the facilities managed by the NDPHC, with five units (gas turbines) and a total designed capacity of about 600MW.

He added that when all the units are fully functional, the Calabar power plant has a total capacity of 560MW available power for dispatch, but the operations of the facility has been limited due to grid constraints, leading to stranded power.

The eligible customer framework is one of the key reliefs for the power sector that we have here in Nigeria. More especially, when most of the power stations that we have in NDPHC today are limited in their operations because of the dispatch challenges.

We are hardly doing the full capacity because of grid constraints but with the eligible customer’s framework we are able to commence some serious drive and engagements with willing buyers of our power.

Calabar is one of the plants where we have bilateral agreement with Togo, with a PPA to supply about 70MW and also there are ongoing discussions with other potential customers in Calabar like Paradise City, where they are willing to off-take 100MW,

he stated.

According to Abdullahi, the NDPHC has been working on getting more eligible customers to ensure that the stranded power in most of its power stations is dispatched through the framework.

Speaking shortly after the inspection, Abdullahi described the plant as one of the best among the ones owned by the NDPHC, with uninterruptible gas availability and a good dispatch network.

He said that aside from the power purchase agreement to supply 70MW of power to the West African nation from the power plant, there are also discussions to supply power to major projects in Calabar.

The NDPHC added that with the Gas Supply Agreement (GSA) with ACCU Gas, the power station remains one of the most viable commercially in the country.

Also, the Chief Operating Officer of the power plant, Mr. Oyewale Olugbenga, said the plant remained the best through the support of NDPHC management and the good operation and maintenance team at the plant.

Even though there are lots of challenges, we are able to surmount them because of the cooperation between them and us. With the experience we have gained over time from other power plants, we are able to keep the plant going because of the existing cooperation in the team,

he added.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.