The Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) has reached agreements to supply power directly to Republic of Togo and to Paradise City in Cross River State using spare capacity at the Calabar Power plant.
The Executive Director, Generation, NDPHC, Engr. Kassim Abdullahi disclosed after inspecting the plant at the weekend.
The plant, which is wholly owned by NDPHC under the NIPP prgramme, has five units with designed total capacity of 600 Mega Watts.
Speaking shortly after the inspection visit, Engr. Abdullahi described that plant as one of the best amongst NDPHC plants with gas available and with a good dispatch network.
He said the company already has a power purchase agreement to supply 70MW of power to West African nation, Togo, from the plant and are in discussion to supply 100MW to Paradise City in Calabar.
According to him, “Calabar is one our best power stations under the NDPHC and it is one of the power stations that we have good gas supply. Where we have a gas supply agreement with ACCU Gas and also we have very good dispatch from Calabar axis because we have some eligible customers as well.
“We are here as part of our inspection activities that are on-going as part routine maintenance that we do on this power station. We are running two units. In the morning it was three units that were available and on grid but because of the instability and some frequency control we had to go down with one unit.
“The other two units are undergoing maintenance on the transformers, loop oil and also on some of the borrow scope inspection on the engines.
“Calabar is doing very well. We have gas, we have good network for dispatch. It is one of the best”.
He explained that when all the units are firing, Calabar plant has 560MW but has a designed capacity of 600MW.
He disclosed that the Eligible Customer framework “is one of the key relieves for the power sector that we have here in Nigeria. More especially, most of the power stations that we have in NDPHC today are limited in their operations because of the dispatch challenges. We are hardly doing the full capacity because most of the time we have to go down but with eligible customers around we are able to commence some serious drive and engagements.
“Calabar is one of them where we have bilateral agreement with Togo where we supply about 70MW and also there are on-going discussions with other potential customers in Calabar like the Paradise City in Calabar where they are willing to take 100MW.
“This is the way to go, we are working tirelessly to getting more eligible customers to ensure that these available stranded power that we have in most of the power stations are dispatched”.
Also speaking, the Chief Operating Officer, COO, Engr. Oyewale Olugbenga John, noted that the Calabar plant has remained the best through the support of NDPHC management and the good operation and maintenance team at the plant.
“Even there are a lot of challenges, we are able to surmount them because corporation between them and us. With the experience we have gained over time from other power plants, we are able to keep the plant going because cooperation in the O&M team”, he added.
He thanked the company’s management for supporting the team, saying “each time we want something from them they quickly get it to us and allow us to progress”.
He disclosed that the time of the inspection when two units were working, the plant was sending 225MW to the national grid due to frequency control.
Engr. Abdullahi was accompanied on the visit by Engr. M.D Dauda Head, O&M and Engr. Yusuf Labaran DGM Gas among others who form the Technical Team as well as the Communication & PR team.
