PHCN announces 4-day power outage

LaGOS—MANAGEMENT of Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, Eko Electricity Distribution Company, EDC, has announced a four-day power interruption in parts of Lagos for maintenance purposes.

The interruption, beginning Friday April 5 to Monday, April 8, will affect mostly Lekki Phase I, VGC, Maroko, Victoria Island, UPDC Estate, Chevron Estate, NICON Town Estate, Victoria Island and other adjoining areas.

The planned power outage, according to the management yesterday, was to enable it carry out major maintenance works on two 11kv feeders for the purpose of getting them ready for evacuation of power from the newly-installed 100MVA 132/33KV power transformer at Ajah Transmission Station and replacement of obsolete 11kv switch gears at Akoka injection sub-station.

Assistant General Manager, Public Affairs of the Company, Mr. Godwin Idemudia, in statement, said the work at Akoka would affect Akoka, Yaba, Sabo and environs.

At the completion of the maintenance and system upgrading work in the two stations, Mr. Idemudia said there will be tremendous improvement in electricity supply to all the affected areas.

He appealed to customers in the affected areas to bear with the company, adding that all inconveniences to be caused by the planned outage were regretted.





-- Punch

Power supply to drop by 800MW

Power supply will drop by 800megawatts for 72 hours due to disruption of gas supply, the Chairman, Presidential Task Force on Power (PTFP) Dagogo Jack has said.

Jack said the PTFT is coordinating with Chevron, Nigerian Gas Company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to ensure that the scheduled gas outage, from tomorrow through Sunday at the Chevron Escravos Gas plant, would be executed with minimal disruption to the supply of electricity.

The outage, he explained yesterday in a statement, “ is scheduled for the tie in of additional gas supply from the plant. As part of the mitigating plan, transmission line maintenance in the Lagos area will also be conducted in tandem to avoid sequential outages.”

The PTFT said the outage is also inclusive of the Shell Afam VI scheduled maintenance which contributes about 200 megawatts to the power shortfall.

He said : “The PTFP is coordinating with the relevant project owners to further mitigate the effect of the expected power shortfall,” adding that the scheduled maintenance operations of this nature are normal in ensuring that power supply is sustained in the long term”.

The Chairman also stated that the benefits of this culture of disciplined maintenance far outweigh the cost of a two to three day inconvenience in reduced supply, promising that with increased generation, future planned maintenance would have minimal impact on supply.

Meanwhile, electricity customers in Oyo and Ogun states are now enjoying improved power supply with the addition of a new 150MVA, 330/132/33kV power transformer in Ayede Transmission Station, Ibadan, Oyo State. The successful installation and commissioning into service of the power transformer by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), last week, has further increased the nations’ grid capacity by 150Maga Volt Amphere (MVA).

In a statement, the the Assistant General Manager (Public Affairs),TCN, Dave Ifabiyi, said that the brand new 150MVA power transformer was provided by the World Bank, through the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN)’s Project Monitoring Unit (PMU). The newly commissioned transformer replaced a previously failed 150MVA, 330/132/33kV power transformer in the same transmission station.

According to the statement, the installation of the new 150MVA 330/132/33kV power transformer was successfully carried out by Areva Alston Engineering, in conjunction with TCN engineers, thereby increasing the wheeling capacity of the Ayede Transmission Station from 300MVA to 450MVA.

TCN also said that with the increased capacity of the Ayede Transmission Substation, it can now wheel more electricity to Ibadan Metropolis, as well as the Shagamu and Ijebu Ode 132/33kV Transmission Substations.



-- The Nation