- TCN blames vandalism for crippling efforts to achieve uninterrupted power supply.
- The World Bank-sponsored 100mva 132/33kv transformer installation with 80MW capacity in Akwa Ibom has reached 5% completion.
The General Manager for the Port Harcourt Region, Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Thomas Inugonum, has said that Nigeria should be able to transmit about 15,000MW of electricity; however, due to weak and ageing infrastructure, it can transmit only 8,100 megawatts (MW) of about 13,000MW of electricity generated. Inugonum, who said this during a news conference in Port Harcourt, stressed that some infrastructures were constructed more than 50 years ago.
He decried the activities of vandals and continuous attacks on TCN’s facilities, calling on the media to sensitise and create awareness of the consequences of destroying those facilities. He stated that daily attacks on TCN facilities in Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Imo, and Rivers negatively impacted efforts to supply uninterrupted electricity.
The TCN GM noted, “In some of our stations, vandals have cut earth-conductors of big transformers that cost about N800 million, resulting in the ‘floating’ of the facility. Some projects have been ongoing for almost 20 years in Okigwe and Mbano in Imo and other places that could not be completed partly because of vandalism. We do not understand why people vandalise our facilities, considering the importance of power supply to economic activities. If transmission power lines are vandalised, and it falls on top of about 100 houses in the process, no occupant would survive,” he noted.
Speaking on the ongoing projects of TCN, Inugonum said that the World Bank-sponsored 100mva 132/33kv transformer installation with 80MW capacity in Itu, Akwa Ibom, has reached 5 per cent completion. Also, the erosion control at T20 in the Eket-Ikot Abasi 132kv DC line is about 20 per cent complete. Other projects include the upgrading of its 132kv to 330kv substation with 2x150mva 330/132kv transformers and 2x60mva 132kv transformer and 33kv switchyard in Owerri, by the Niger Delta Power Holding Company, among others.