By Ella Anokam
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) says the Maiduguri Emergency Power Plant (MEPP) project is a giant step towards achieving its gas and power mandate to add 50MW into the national grid generation.
Malam Mele Kyari, Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), NNPCL, made this known on Thursday during the commissioning of the 50-Megawatt Maiduguri Emergency Power Plant project by President Muhammadu Buhari in Borno.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that due to the unfortunate attacks of insurgents which destroyed three towers of electricity power lines in Maiduguri, President Buhari in April 2021, directed the NNPC Ltd., to restore power supply to Maiduguri and its environs.
Kyari said on the directive of the president, a 32 MW gas fired power plant was designed and built in 16 months, which was unprecedented and had been successfully test-run and confirmed ready by the president.
He said the commissioning of the emergency thermal power plant by the would open a new chapter
of the NNPCL commercial energy for on grid and off grid capital markets.
According to him, the Maiduguri emergency power project will be scaled up to 50MW shortly, the first thermal plant of this scale in the whole of the Northeast.
The GCEO said the interventions of the Ministry of Power had restored the traditional 330KV line in Maiduguri and provided another redundancy of 33KV line from Damaturu to Maiduguri.
“The combined effect of the Maiduguri Emergency Power Plant and the replacement of the transmission lines makes Maiduguri the most sufficiently capital city in Nigeria.
“Obviously, it is a new power hub in the region, we may very soon see power exports to neighbouring countries from Maiduguri.
“As a commercial enterprise, NNPC sees this project as an opportunity to monitise our abundance natural resource by expanding access to energy to support economic growth, industrialisation and job creation across the country,” he said.
He said Maiduguri has been the commercial nerve centre of the Northeast for more than a century.
He added that it represented a huge market due to its demographic advantage and geographical accessibility to sub regional markets including Republic of Niger, Chad, Central Afrique Republic, Sudan and Mali among others.
He said that in spite of these huge opportunities, energy poverty had continued to restrain business communities in Maiduguri and its environs from expanding their market frontiers to achieve the full potentials.
The GCEO said the project provided better investment climate and opportunity to advance the Federal Government’s domestic gas utilisation mandate while supporting the power industry, government of Borno and stakeholders to achieve sustainable energy supply.
This, he said, in order to ensure sustainable operations the power plant was equipped with a natural gas system for energy supply.
“Mr President, currently NNPCL and its partners are delivering 800MW to the national grid from Afam two, Afam six in Okpai phase one thermal plants with combined installed capacity of over 1,100 MW.
“We have also completed Okpai phase two project that will add up to 320MW of power to our national grid. We are also progressing with other power projects across the country, including those along the AKK pipeline root.
“NNPCL appreciates the collaboration of the ministry, relevant power stakeholders and the Borno state government in achieving this milestone,” he said. (NAN)
