The Federal Government, through the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), has successfully executed a Power Purchase Agreement with various utility companies for the distribution of approximately 250MW of power across the country.
News About Nigeria gathered that the initiative is part of the ongoing ‘Light Up Nigeria’ program led by Vice President Shettima.
According to documents obtained from NDPHC, the power sale transactions were formalised under the ‘Light Up Nigeria’ program, with Discos such as Eko Electricity Distribution Plc, Compagnie d’Energie Electrique du Togo, Sunflag Steel Industries Limited in Lagos, and others as off-takers.
The program’s goal is to sell the existing available capacity and further develop additional capacity.
NDPHC emphasised that the power generation projects were funded through the Excess Crude Account, properly appropriated by the Federal Government and the states between 2005 and 2009.
The current installed capacity of NDPHC stands at 4,000MW.
Despite these achievements, NDPHC highlighted systemic challenges hampering its operations, including transmission constraints and issues related to gas supply and transportation, affecting the guarantee of generation up to the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN)-allocated evacuation capacity.
The document revealed that only the Calabar plant receives a full gas supply out of the 10 power plants under NDPHC.
Plants in the western axis face challenges in obtaining the required gas supply, mainly due to low pressure on NGIC gas pipelines (ELPS & Oben-Ajaokuta). Gas suppliers demand higher tariffs beyond the industry-approved rate.
NDPHC acknowledged that resolving these challenges requires additional investments, stating that “it is obvious that a lot more investment is required in transmission, and the government alone cannot do this.”
The company called for urgent private capital mobilisation to address these issues.
