LAGOS State government on Wednesday said the much anticipated the Embedded Power Supply Project will commence by July 2018, noting that all is now set for the take-off of the programme, a brain child of the present administration, targeted towards generating 3,000 megawatts electricity for the state within the next three to five years.

Commissioner for Energy, Mr. Olawale Oluwo, disclosed this at the ongoing annual Ministerial Press Briefing held at Bagauda Kaltho Press Centre in Alausa to mark the third anniversary of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s administration.

According to him, the project when it takes off would commence the journey to deregulate Nigeria’s power sector from Lagos State and ultimately achieve energy security for the state.

“Our Power Reform Programme which is the Embedded Power Project, all things being equal, will take off in July 2018. The House passed the law in January and the governor signed the bill into law in February. The implementation committee is already working and a lot of work has been going on the field and everywhere. We would do our Expression of Interest sometime in June and that process will kick-start this project,” the commissioner said.

Oluwo said the 13 locations for the pilot phase of the programme was currently awaiting approval of the State Executive Council and would be released soon.

He said that the power and gas sectors reforms were key interventions of the Governor Ambode led administration to correct the structural challenges in the power sector and gradually position the state for 24-hour power supply.

The commissioner said that apart from the reforms in the power sector, the state government had begun implementation of other sectoral reforms, including the downstream petroleum sector, the gas sector as well as the solid minerals sector and regulatory reforms.

GDP: Lagos chamber calls for improvement in business environment
“The essence of all this is that we want to give Lagos, energy security and to achieve this, you must have security of electricity, gas and petroleum products,” he said.

Oluwo said that when the reforms were fully implemented in the next three to five years, the state’s reliance on gas from the Niger Delta region would be less critical to the state’s economy.

“The overall objective of the gas reform is to open the Lagos gas market to local and international players in order to make the Niger Delta gas less critical to future of Lagos economy (the ultimate goal is to make Lagos State to be fully independent of Niger Delta gas in three to five years,” he said.

Oluwo said plans were already in the pipeline to increase gas supply to Lagos from the present 500 million standard cubic feet (scf) per day to approximately 1.25billion scf per day in three to five years, adding that the state would soon sign long-term off-take contracts for gas found in any oil field in Lagos to power the Lagos economy.

He said seven agencies would be driving the reform in the gas sector as plans had been concluded for the reticulation of gas to homes starting from Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Ikeja GRA.

“The overall objective of the gas reform is to open the Lagos gas market to local and international players in order to make the Niger Delta gas less critical to future of Lagos economy (the ultimate goal is to make Lagos State to be fully independent of Niger Delta gas in three to five years,” he said.

CodeTemplar:
Sounds good on paper but the ultimate market for energy is that of manufacturers who invest the energy consumed in productive use and going by trends of Lagos always charging so high above known market for their services it could end up choking businesses that depend heavily on power.

OkutaNla:


The anti-Lagos pessimists and bad-belle merchants don land. Must you SE folks always antagonize every developmental initiative emanating from Lagos? Your kind want to enjoy stable electricity yet you don't want to pay for it -- even though you are already paying exhorbitantly via fueling and maintaining multiple generators.

Atleast Lagos is taking the bull by the horn to address the issue. Nothing stops any of your SE states from also coming up with similar or better inititative to compete with Lagos and attract businesses that you claim will be 'choked' by this Lag initiative, instead of displaying your bad-belle here as usual.

yemmight:
I think the best way to handle power is to decentralize. Let each State manager their own energy. Too many project being managed by the Federal. I remember when Tinubu started Enron power project in 1999/2000. You can imagine if FG gave support and approval to such project, we should be talking about different stories today. And you know if this is successful in Lagos, other state will follow. Way to go Ambode.

CodeTemplar:
I yarn the truth and see no need to tag me an anti-lagos pessimist. If they go ahead and include Oga's commission or cut as is rampant in most projects and PPP then it could affect the competitiveness and long term goal of the project. I am not a SE person for your info.

Mikeross62:
We need to be moving at the speed of light,before country like Ghana or Benin republic be ahead of us
We really need to improve on so many things in this country not just to be talking

Check my siggy

OkutaNla:


Yinmu. You are a well known Lagos/SW-hating yiboman on this forum and you don't have to lie about your ethnicity to make your point. Guy, your state needs your 'truth' way more than Lagos does so you can shove it. Una go dey complain about how Lagos handles its business yet una wan die there

Your state governor will be more receptive to your 'truth' coz Lasgidi no need am.

CodeTemplar:
Sounds good on paper but the ultimate market for energy is that of manufacturers who invest the energy consumed in productive use and going by trends of Lagos always charging so high above known market for their services it could end up choking businesses that depend heavily on power.

CodeTemplar:
See this tribal bigot claiming what he knows not. If the LASG likes, it. an build a 10,000MW capacity power system and sell it at Ñ70 kWHr. I don't talk my own but stop talking off point and sounding like a low IQ bigot.

OkutaNla:


I heard Obiano has banned Okada business in Anambra state, displacing 25,000 people. You will never be found dropping your 'truth' on such threads but you always get a hard-on over Lagos/SW threads. Better go and receive sense and face your unproductive state.

GavelSlam:


Suggest a solution.

CodeTemplar:
You shouldn't be so ashamed of your state. Feel free to post about your beloved Obaino and Anambra but you don't have to forcefully tag me with those.

CodeTemplar:
Thank you. Solution will be to build a large scaled power plant with good scale of economy to drive down price of the power that will be eventually sold to industries. Another point of note is being careful not to overprice the power sold and therefore kill off businesses with high power cost. Lagos already has the printing industry of West Africa for example and it will be so unwise to choke them off with high power rate.

yemmight:
I think the best way to handle power is to decentralize. Let each State manager their own energy. Too many project being managed by the Federal. I remember when Tinubu started Enron power project in 1999/2000. You can imagine if FG gave support and approval to such project, we should be talking about different stories today. And you know if this is successful in Lagos, other state will follow. Way to go Ambode.

GavelSlam:



Sorry, how is this different from what the Lagos state government is proposing?

GavelSlam:



Sorry, how is this different from what the Lagos state government is proposing?

OkutaNla:


Enemy of progress. You are only acting true to type. Bad-belle is in you people's blood that is why you never celebrate any good initiative or news. You must always find a negative spin out of everything. Koshi comot.

OkutaNla:


Guy, no mind am. Even if LASG said the exact same thing he wrote, he will change it just so he can fault it. They will never see the positive in anything. Bad-belle runs in their blood.

CodeTemplar:


Can each state build her own transmission system from scratch? The answer is likely NO, and that gives the FG a firm control on power issue.
In fact Lagos is one of the few states that can afford to build a brand new transmission infrastructure.

I say this because Lagos has a small land mass and therefore will need no long distance equipments, Lagos has the cash, Lagosians have the buying power to offset initial capital investment.

CodeTemplar:
The pricing standard Lagos state govt has adopted in past for services to me is on the high side and that is why I used these words going by trends of Lagos always charging so high.

If they don't plan it to deliver cheap power from foundation it could become expensive for industries considering that the market for most Lagos industries is competitive.

GavelSlam:

Give examples of these high pricing standards.

yemmight:


I agree with you that not all the states have the capacity but those that have should be given. For instance in South-West Lagos, Ogun Ondo are capable. South-South - Delta, Edo, Rivers infact most oil producing states have the capacity to produce and in the North kano, Abuja, Kaduna, Sokoto are also capable. By so doing, FG will focus more on other infrastructures.