Stakeholders Proffer Solutions to Energy Sector Challenges

Stakeholders in the nation’s power sector have identified measures to reduce the challenges inherent in the power sector.

They identified the measures in a communique at the end of an interactive forum organised by the Market Operator, an arm of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

The communique issued in Abuja on Monday was jointly signed by Mr Sola Adeyegbe of Ibadan Generating Company (GENCO), Mr Kabiru Adamu of TCN and Emeka Akpara of Omotosho Electric Power Plc.

The communique said that the GENCOS had the capacity to generate 8,500MW of electricity for the country.

The GENCOs, however, called for an improvement in transmission and distribution capacity to accommodate their envisaged generation.

It said that the GENCOs also called for centralisation of market collection and appropriate disbursement based on the agreed percentages.

According to the communique, the GENCOs and Service Providers have called for the declaration of eligible customers in the nation’s power sector.

They also advocated for the denomination of gas price in Naira with the DISCOs calling for harmonisation of currency for all transactions in the market.

It said that the GENCOs also demanded for the payment mechanism for their outstanding N504 billion owned it by the sector players.

According to the communique, the DISCOs advocate for the implementation of the last tariff review.

The DISCOs called for immediate payment of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) outstanding debts to improve liquidity in the market.

It further said that the DISCOs made case for provision of subsidy in the market to support purchase of power from the GENCOs.

According to the communique, the service providers recommended the formation of a metering company to manage both trading and consumers metering to ensure standards and efficient deployment of meters in the industry.

It said that the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Company (NBET) should be empowered to fulfill its mandate of bridging the revenue shortfall in the electricity market.

It resolved that the Transmission Service Provider (TSP) should have a clear service level agreements with DISCOs and GENCOS for effective service delivery.

The Market Operator and Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) should be mandated to enforce full compliance of the market rules and sanction the noncompliance by defaulting stakeholders.

VON