Uche Cecil Izuora
Aba Power Electric Ltd, is working towards obtaining more natural gas supplies from its partners to increase electricity to nine of the 17 local government areas (LGAs) in Abia State.
The demand becomes imperative as the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) commences regular maintenance of the critical Alaoji-Aba 132kv line.
A statement by Ugo Opiegbe, the managing director of Aba Power, explained that “a team of dedicated and competent TCN engineers and technicians is scheduled to service the line from December 1 to 7 to ensure regular and quality bulk power supply to the Aba Ringfenced Area managed by Aba Power, Nigeria’s 12th distribution company (DisCo).
“We have, therefore, been in talks with the NNPCL and Heirs Energies to increase gas supply to the 188-megawatt Geometric Power Plant in the Osisoma Industrial Layout in Aba to enable us to provide electricity to the people, businesses, and communities in the nine LGAs we cover, and they have pledged to do their best to give us increased gas”.
The NNPCL and Heirs Energies own Oil Mining Lease (OML) 17 in the Owaza community in Ukwa West LGA in Abia State as a joint venture, with Heirs Energies as the operator.
Geometric Power gets its gas from the 27-kilometre gas pipeline it built to the OML, according to Engineer Cliff Eneh, an electric power consultant in Lagos who used to work for both the Texas Power and Light company in the United States and the defunct National Electric Power of Nigeria (NEPA).
“Due to the insufficient gas supplies to the Geometric Power Plant”, Eneh told journalists today, “the electricity firm has been augmenting its own power generation with supplies from the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) which uses TCN’s 133kv and 330kv lines to make them available to the Geometric Power Plant.
“This is why Aba residents and businesses might be affected by the scheduled one-week maintenance work on the Line, though Geometric Power has taken proactive steps to either minimize the impact on the customers or reduce it to the barest minimum”.
While commending the cooperation between Geometric Power and the TCN as well as the NDPHC, Engr Eneh noted that the planned TCN shutdown would not have any impact on the Aba Ringfence if there were sufficient gas supplies to the 188MW plant.
People in the Aba Ringfence, recalled the engineer, did not experience outages when there was a series of nationwide outages in October and November 2024 because there was a significant gas supply improvement to the area during this period by the NNPCL and Heirs Energies.
“Not only would the plant have started to provide full and uninterrupted electricity to all the nine LGAs under its coverage since commissioning last February 26,” said the power expert, “it would have been exporting power to the national grid to increase power availability in other parts of Nigeria since it already has installed three turbines of 47MW each, with the fourth to be installed anytime the gas issue is resolved.
“The whole nation is waiting anxiously to see the NNPCL and Heirs Energies deliver on their promise to increase natural gas supply to the Geometric Power Plant which will, in turn, provide electricity to Aba Power Electricity Ltd.