TCN obtains $2 bn for national grid infrastructure

The Managing Director of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Usman Gur Mohammed, says the company has obtained an estimated $2 billion for the rehabilitation of national grid infrastructure.

The funds will also be used for the expansion of its transmission capacities up to 20,000MW within the next three years.

Daily Times gathered that some of the transmission facilities are either outdated or inadequate to evacuate power generated by the generation companies (GenCos).

Mohammed stated that because of the liquidity issue in the power sector, TCN had sought the support of the ministries of finance, and power, which led to the raising of the fund from multilateral donors for the expansion of the grid.

TCN’s boss said the funds were raised from the World Bank, African Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, Japanese Agency for International Cooperation (JAICA), and the European Union.

“Last week, we advertised for transformer capacities for Kano, Kaduna, Lagos, and Shiroro regions. These are part of the projects we have been able to raise from the multilateral regions, and the total capacity we are working towards achieving is 20,000MW in the next three years,” he said.

He said,“We have also restarted some projects that had not been doing well like the Abuja Transmission Ring Project, which is supposed to put three substations within the capital territory, and provide another avenue for supply from Lafia.”

He said,“We have also resuscitated the project that had been on the drawing board for a long time. Those two projects plus the project that we are going to raise now is about $1.55 bn.”

It is alleged that the company is challenged with right of way issues, and is collaborating with state governors including Kano, Kaduna, Edo, Abia, Imo, Ogun, and Lagos to pay compensations and resolve the problems.

“We discovered that right of way is a big problem in Nigeria, and actually it is a national issue. In trying to expand the capacity of transmission, we started collaborating with the states in every area that we are putting significant capacity,”he added.

According to him,“As part of these projects and investments, we have raised to expand the transmission lines from Shiroro to Kaduna, and from Kaduna to Kano. We are putting a cord line that will carry 2,400MW capacity. We have never had that kind of capacity in Nigeria.”