Mainstream Energy Solutions Limited (MESL), the concessionaire of Kainji and Jebba hydro power stations has said that it is in talks with Burkina Faso to sell “stranded energy” to the West African country.

According to Premium Times, MD of the company Lamu Audu made this known on Thursday at PwC’s Annual Power and Utilities Roundtable in Lagos.

“I am complaining that I have energy that cannot be utilised. And some of us are actually looking beyond the borders of Nigeria to sell our power if the Nigerian market cannot take it because we have to remain in business – we have responsibilities to our shareholders.

Investments have been made, and that is why we are looking into the West African market. Honestly, we are already talking to Burkina Faso. They approached us and we are willing to have deals with them to sell power to them. They are willing to buy.

As we speak today, we generate 20 to 25 per cent of the energy going into the grid.

We have ramped up our capacity at Kainji from zero to 440 MW (with installed capacity of 760MW). At Jebba (with installed capacity of 578 .4 MW, with six generating units), what we concentrated on is the reliability of the existing units. We utilised the capacity of our staff to recover some of the units.

Currently, we have a capacity of 922 MW but, on the average, it is only 600 MW to 650 MW that is utilised. So, we have stranded energy, which is seriously impacting on our ability to attract more funding for capacity recovery and capacity expansion,” Audu said.

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