BusinessDay 21 Aug 2018

Tuesday 21 August 2018
23
C002D5556 BUSINESS DAY
Energy Report
Oil & Gas Power Renewables Environment
Ibadan Disco to start another phase of supply pre-paid meters
… invests over N11.5bn in metering, network upgrade, rehabilitation
OLUSOLA BELLO
Electricity consumers
under
the jurisdiction
of Ibadan Electricity
Distribution
Company ( IBEDC),
who have paid for pre-paid
meters but are yet to get,
would be serviced latest
by December this year, the
management of the company
says .
The company says it is
ready to meter all those that
have paid for pre- paid meters
but they must provide
evidence of payment. The
management stated this
while conducting stakeholders
and journalists round
some of it facilities that had
been upgraded to enhance
steady power supply. It also
showed them the over 11,
000 pre - paid meters it said
would be deployed to customers
starting from this
week.
According to the company
over N11.5billion has
been invested in major capital
projects such as metering,
network upgrade and rehabilitation
last six months.
According to John Ayodele,
the chief operating
officer who represented
John Donnachie, managing
director/ceo of the company
said:“As part of our
unwavering commitment
to our mission, distributing
power, changing lives, we
have in the past 6 months
invested over N11.5 Billion
in major capital projects.
These span across our franchise
area covering – Oyo,
Ogun, Osun, Kwara; parts of
Kogi, Niger and Ekiti States.
These projects are major
game changers for IBEDC
as a business and for our
esteemed customers, which
have significantly improved
our service delivery, quality
and quantity of power
supply”.
He said recently, the
company commenced the
procurement and supply of
10,000 Distribution Transformer
(DT) Meters at a
cost of N4 Billion. These DT
Meters will greatly reduce
the challenge of estimated
bills and ensure customers
without meters are billed
more accurately through
its energy audit, accounting
functionalities, and above
all, assist in our Technical,
commercial and collection
(TC&C) losses.
To further reduce safety
related accidents and top
achieve the vision Zero and
Safety culture of IBEDC,
the board awarded a whopping
sum of N1.47 Billion
for a major overhaul of the
Health, Safety and Environment
department.
How inefficient grid management is killing power generating plants
The power sector is
made up of three
mutually exclusive,
but necessary parts
– generation, transmission,
and distribution. Nigerians
are all very much conversant
with the operations
of the electric generator
or generating set (I better
pass my neighbour or
other bigger ones) which
is made up of three parts
– the generator itself (machine),
an electrical cable
or wire (transmission) that
connects the generator to
a control panel or fuse box
through which the generated
power is distributed to
equipment (distribution).
All electrical appliances
have set conditions under
which they function at optimal
levels. Any fluctuations
in these conditions can
cause the appliances to run
at a lower efficiency. Power
generators,like the Hydros
and thermals used in Nigeria,
are no exception to this.
Thermal power plants, like
the gas turbines (GTs) are
designed to operate optimally
and efficiently at base
load. Operations of these gas
turbines at operating points,
far away from their baseloads
implies a reduction in
efficiency or in other words
an increase in consumption
of gas by as much as 15-
20%,a cost not recognized
by NBET nor captured in
the MYTO.
This reduction in operating
efficiency is in addition
to the huge fatigue damage
leading to higher O&M cost
meted out on turbines due to
ramping up and down over
wide temperature swings. It
is common knowledge that
GenCo power stations have
been used by TCN, via its
subsidiary SO/NCC to stabilise
the national grid with
no compensations.
Generally, the damaging
effects includes: thermal
stress on Steam Turbine
Blades, creep of compressor
and turbine blades, Cracks
on exhaust sleeves, Irregular
heating and cooling cycles
of hot gas path components,
Cracks in ceramic tiles of
the combustion chamber,
Defective gas control valves
due to wear and tear etc.
It is a no brainer that the
grid cannot conveniently
take over 4500MW without
rejecting load. Generation
above 5,000 MW may either
be lost or rejected either
by DisCos or transmission
service provider (TSP) due
to their inabilities largely
caused by infrastructural
challenges (Line cuts, Transformer
faults and unavailability
etc.) causing grid
frequency to be very high.
Furthermore, Power
Generation Companies are
increasingly facing lower capacity
utilization (dispatch)
being forced to operate their
dispatched Turbines/machines
far from the baseload
settings sometimes even
lower than 50% of rated
capacity. On the plant level,
less than 53% of average
available power capacity is
dispatched to the grid. For
the month of April, 2018
for instance, on a daily basis,
GENCOS had an average
available capacity of
7485 MW but TCN could
only transmit an average of
3985MW which is about 53%
of the available capacity. This
data as published by TCN
(SO/NCC) is presented in
the table below.
The project will deliver on
over 60 critical need areas
with major focus on procurement
and deployment of
PPEs, IPEs, signages, Labels
and symbols. This project
is expected to map the layouts
of 114 Substations in
order to develop conceptual
site models, training
on emergency techniques,
solid waste and hazardous
management programme,
production of occupational
health and safety environmental
policies and framework
for all technical and
non-technical staff. In addition,
it will ultimately aid us
in attaining the certification
required, thereby making
us an internationally recognized
health hazard compliant
organisation.
“In line with reducing
the incidence of estimated
bills, we have commenced
our meter roll out with a
1st batch of 48,470 Energy
Meters of various ratings
and capacities. This includes
35,000 Single-Phase, 12,000
Three-Phase, 1,470 Whole
current, C.T-Operated and
Statistical Meters all at a sum
of N3.1 Billion, ahead of the
MAP initiative currently being
finalized by NERC and
the Discos,” he said.
The continuous metering
of Maximum Demand customers
is also in place with
the development of 13 High
Voltage Energy Meters and
delivery of 912 Low Voltage
Maximum Demand Energy
Meters at a cost of N405 Million.
To further support the
huge metering expenditure,
we have invested extensively
in the supply and installation
It is inexplicable that a
country of over 180 million,
is unable to utilise the
GenCos available capacity
of 7500MW, what then is the
incentive for further capacity
recovery and expansion?
Despite GenCos efforts
to increase their available
capacity effectively nominating
same on a daily basis,
the SO has the “grid
right” to instruct any GenCo
to reduce or cut down on
its nominated capacity. It
should also be noted that
for a GenCo to nominate
Power utilisation for the month of April, 2018 for six thermal and two Hydro plants
Olusola Bello, Team lead, Analysts: Isaac Anyaogu, Stephen Onyekwelu, Graphics: Joel Samson. Email: energyreport@businessdayonline.com, Tel: +234-8023020011; +234-7037817378;
of Advanced Metering Infrastructure
(AMI) Systems at
over N1 Billion, this investment
is critical to optimally
implement the functionalities
of DT Meters”. As we
speak, we have recently received
95% of CAPMI meters
for deployment for those
that paid.
The managing Director/
CEO informed that the ongoing
Asset and Customer
Enumeration (ACE) exercise
estimated at a N5 Billion,
is now fully rolled out
across the franchise and is
scheduled for completion
early next year. The project
on completion will greatly
enhance service delivery
by providing critical data
needed for planning and
provision of infrastructure,
reduce estimated bills, improve
the accuracy, enhance
quality of power supply and
quicker fault response rates.
The pilot exercise at Elebu, (a
community within Ibadan)
has already identified additional
customer population
which is yielding fruits in
terms of efficient customer
service delivery.
any capacity, it means effective
commitments has been
made as per gas and other
equivalent overhead costs.
This is a legitimate cost that
must be recovered!
Compelling a generator
to ramp up and ramp down
at unscheduled time affects
it equivalent operating hours
(EOH) and also stresses the
internals of the machine
thereby reducing the plants
lifespan as well as attracts an
associated costs, incurred
in making such capacity
available. Generating plants
can no longer sustain these
costs alone given the level
of remittance in the market,
which barely covers the operating
cost.
The only sane thing to
do and save the sector from
collapsing is for GenCos to
shut down until when the
networks (transmission and
distribution) are efficient
enough to take power and
fully pay for both outstanding
and current liabilities
to GenCos. Section 12.6.6
of the Grid code allows the
Generator to disconnect the
Generating Unit for reasons
of safety of personnel, Apparatus,
and/or Plant.