Nigeria’s largest power generation plant, Egbin Power Plc, is for the first time in eight years generating above 1,000 megawatts of electricity.
This follows continuous investment and upgrade activities on the plant by the Sahara Power Group and Korea Electric Power Corporation, Egbin Power explained in a statement on Wednesday.
Eight years ago, the plant hit the 1,000MW mark for barely two hours and never attained it again until now, according to the company.
Prior to the privatisation of the plant in November 2013, the Egbin plant average generation was below 500MW due to the dismal state of its six units. At its lowest point, only two of the six units were operational, according to the statement.
The Chairman, Egbin Power Plc, Mr. Kola Adesina, was quoted as saying that the feat signposted the unfolding success of the privatisation process and the power sector reform in the country.
Adesina attributed the achievement partly to the direct intervention of the Federal Government in its determination to resolve the power crisis, which had resulted in recent improvements in gas supply.
“This is driving the increase in power supply in the nation and boosting socio-economic development. Prior to this, we had invested heavily and had the plant ready to generate power at full capacity, but there was no gas to do so. This, is indeed, a good development for the power sector in Nigeria,” he said.
The company’s Chief Executive Officer, Dallas Peavey, also said the transformation in Egbin commenced following its acquisition by Kepco Energy Resource Limited, in collaboration with its technical partners, Korea Electric Power Corporation.
He said, “Through the injection of close to N50bn in new capital into Egbin post privatisation, the Sahara Power/KEPCO partnership has brought to the power plant an unprecedented level of innovativeness, professionalism, human capital development and continuing investment in new technology. The control room panels, installed at the plant’s inception, have been removed and upgraded to state of the art digital panels.
“The highlight of the main plant rehabilitation occurred in the first quarter of 2015, when the company successfully rehabilitated ST Unit 6, bringing an additional 220MW to the national grid and restoring the power plant to its installed capacity of 1,320MW.”
