The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), has accused Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) of rejecting about 40 per cent of electricity wheeled to the company at TCN’s substations in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
TCN’s General Manager, Transmission Services, Mr Sulaiman Mahmud made the accusation in an interview with journalists on Monday in Abuja.
Mahmud said that complaints of inadequate power supply by consumers in the FCT and AEDC’s franchise areas was not a challenge of transmission.
He said AEDC was not fully taking delivery of the electricity transmitted in its sub-stations.
Meanwhile, consumers in FCT satellite towns of Kubwa, Nyanya, Karu, Karshi, Orozo, Lugbe among others have been grappling with the challenge of epileptic power supply in the last two months.
The challenges ranged from load-shedding, limited supply, non-supply for days, outrageous estimated billings, and overloaded transformers among others.
“At the Karu transmission substation with an installed capacity of 2×60 MVA, basically, what we are experiencing is load rejection from AEDC, because we have 96 MW from the two transformers.
“Incidentally, from what we are recording for the past one week, you see that the transformers are just carrying 31 MW, sometimes up to 48MW in some instances,’’ Mahmud said.
He said AEDC was only taking between 35MW to 50MW on the average, out of 96 MW from the Karu substation.
“So the complain they are raising that we don’t have enough capacity to supply them, let them pick the one we have, that is our argument with them.
“It is surprising that you have this capacity and people in Karu, Jikwoyi, Karshi ,Kurudu ,and Orozo, don’t get supply up to two hours a day.
“We have a situation where we can supply them power but they refuse to take the power.
“We have 100 per cent of power to give and they are taking 60 per cent and rejecting 40 per cent.
“In Kubwa substation, AEDC is also taking 60 per cent and rejecting 40 per cent.
“If they say they don’t want to take the power and deny their customers supply, there is nothing we can do.
“Even this issue has been escalated and the management of TCN had raised the issue before the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).’’
He also accused AEDC of its inability to fix its poor distribution network in its franchise areas of Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger and the FCT.
“Additionally, they have this issue of poor line construction, most of their lines are poorly constructed.
“You will notice that once it is raining in Abuja, all the out–going feeders will be out and this is basically because of lack of maintenance and poor construction.’’
He, however, said TCN had improved the capacity of the sub-stations in the FCT by upgrading the capacities of the transformers to wheel more electricity.
“In Apo substation that supplies power to the city centres like Apo, Lokogoma, among others, the new TCN management has also added more transformers to the Apo station.
“Japan government had also supported by providing capacitor ban in the substation to solve the problem of low voltage and improve high voltage in the FCT.
“In Katempe substation, there is also an addition of 100MVA, equivalent of 80MW.
“All the substations in AEDC franchise areas, TCN management has added about 304 additional capacity to the substations.’’
Mahmud said there was the need for AEDC to make an appreciable investment in its distribution network to complement TCN’s investment in the substations.
This, Mahmud said would be to the benefit of the consumers in AEDC’s coverage areas.
Meanwhile, Mr Oyebode Fadipe, Head Corporate Communication, AEDC said that the allegation of rejection of load was strange to AEDC.
He said AEDC was allocated 11.5 per cent of electricity from the National Grid.
Fadipe, however, said AEDC in a bid to satisfy all its customers was consistently taking 13 per cent power above the grid allocation. (NAN)