A total of 126 power firms have received generation licences from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission to generate 36,040.12 megawatts of electricity for the country.
According to NERC, the power firms will generate on-grid, off-grid and embedded power based on the various licences given to them by the commission.
The NERC Commissioner for Legal, Licensing and Enforcement, Dr. Steven Andzenge, said this on Thursday at a ceremony where the commission issued an amended licence to the Akwa Ibom State Government, promoter of the Ibom Power Plant, for the plant to increase its generation capacity from 190MW to 685MW.
Andzenge said the commission had issued 126 licences with combined capacity for 35,314MW of on-grid, 428.12MW off-grid and 298MW embedded power generation.
He said, “Our scorecard for now shows that we issued about 126 licences since inception of NERC. NERC has been in existence for about 10 years now. Out of these licences, on-grid are 72; off-grid, 25; embedded, six; distribution 14; trading, one; transmission, one; and system operation, one.
“Of the promoters, in terms of on-grid, we have 22,216MW; off-grid, 428MW; embedded, 298MW; NIPP, 5,032MW; PHCN successor companies, about 7,283MW; and legacy IPP, 708MW. The total capacity for on-grid is 35,314MW, off-grid is 428.12MW, and embedded generation is 298MW.”
On the Ibom Power plant, NERC said the licence issued to the firm would allow it raise its power generation capacity from 190MW to 685MW.
The plant currently supplies 190MW to the national grid. The facility is a state government-owned gas-fired power plant that was licensed on May 12, 2008 to operate a 190MW plant. The company on December 19, 2014 submitted an application to amend its licence to 685MW. That application was approved on October 27, 2015.
Receiving the licence on behalf of the state and the company’s management, the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Mr. Emmanuel Udom, expressed satisfaction with the manner and speed with which the application to increase the generation capacity was treated by the commission.
