The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has announced that Nigeria is set to boost its national grid capacity by 150 megawatts before the close of 2024.
Speaking on Thursday during a briefing with State House Correspondents, following a closed-door meeting between German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, Adelabu attributed the planned upgrade to the successful completion of the pilot phase of the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI).
“We have completed the pilot phase of this project, up to 80%. This involves the importation, installation, and commissioning of 10 power transformers and 10 powermobile substations. They’ve been imported. They’ve been installed, and lots of them have been commissioned. We have just about two left to be commissioned before the end of the year,” the minister said.
“The positive impact of this is that it has added nothing less than 750 megawatts to our transmission grid capacity, which is why the relative stability that we are seeing in the grid today is the direct positive impact of the pilot stage completion.
“So, we believe that before the end of the year, an additional 150 megawatts capacity is going to be added upon completion of the entire pilot phase.”
‘Quite Fragile, Dilapidating’
The minister’s statement comes amid the national grid’s 12th collapse this year, leaving millions of households without electricity.
Experts have attributed the recurring grid failures to aging infrastructure and other challenges.
However, Adelabu has given assurances that Nigerians can expect improved power supply moving forward.
“When we are done with the Phase One project in the transmission, the entire grid will not remain the same, and that’s why we are telling Nigerians that this is a very old grid. It’s quite fragile and it’s dilapidating,” he said.
“We need to revamp the entire grid for us to be sure of stability going forward.”