Power generation capacity hits 4,000mw, as Egbin bounces back
Wednesday, 30 March 2011 00:00 By Sulaimon Salau

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=43100:power-generation-capacity-hits-4000mw-as-egbin-bounces-back&catid=94:energy-report&Itemid=592

THE bouncing back of the nation’s biggest power plant, Egbin thermal plant after the successful restoration of one of its faulty turbines, has buoyed the national power generation to about 4,000mega watts (mw).

The Minister of State for Power, Arc. Nuhu Wya, who disclosed this during the commissioning of Hydrogen Station at Egbin Thermal Station in Ikorodu, Lagos recently, said that plans are in the pipeline to put all the six turbines in the station on-stream to operate at full capacity of 1,320mw before the end of the year.

Commending the staff of the Egbin thermal station for their efforts in sustaining the operations of the station, Wya also said the station’s generating capacity stood at 1,100 mega watts (mw), while the national generation hits 4,000mw, noting that although about 3,800mw are presently supplied to national grid due to frequency control necessitated by distribution intake.

According to him, the improvement was aided by the restoration of the additional unit of the station ST-01 (with the capacity to generate 220mw), which crashed in December 2009.

Egbin operates on six turbines with each generating 220 mw, but two of the units (one and six) have been put off for several years due to a major fault, thereby reducing power generation from the plant.

Apparently agog with the restoration of one of the units, the minister said: “Five out of six of the turbine are now running, only one of them (ST-06) is not working and most of the major components needed are available here in Nigeria, we need to re-engineer our procurement plans within this year and the chief executive officer of Egbin has promised to do that. Each of those turbines is capable of giving 220 mw, which translated into 1,100 mw.

“When we say we have 4,000mw some people call to say no it is a lie, but it’s true. This station Egbin presently has the capacity to generate 1,100mw, but in the process of delivering power to the people, it is fluctuating. Indeed, Nigeria has had over 4,000mw of electricity now, but what we are sending out in the average is 3,800mw because of the frequency control that regulates the supply.” he explained.

Besides the restored turbine, the power station also commissioned a new Hydrogen plant that is positioned to aid the power generating set used by the station and boost its reliability.

According to the Acting Chief Executive Officer, Egbin Electric Power Plc, Mr. Mike Ilo Uzoigwe, the turbine repairs gulped the sum of N1 billion while the new hydrogen plant gulped N922 million.

The new plant has two trains (A and B) each with a cell capacity of 13.5 standard meter cubic per hour (stdm3/hr) and a bank of eight bigger gas cylinders with a capacity of 312.5stdm3/hr.

Before the commissioning of the facility, Uzoigwe said his workers have had course to source for hydrogen from Delta Power Station to sustain power generation at Egbin.   “Though we had five of our six units running through this period, but without a functional hydrogen plant our station reliably fell to as low as 30 per cent, even though we still had a capability of 1080mw.

“Let me use this opportunity to promise you that as soon as we are able to put all necessary funds together, we will start the final stage of repairing ST-06. By your usual support (minister) we are planning to bring back ST-06 and then we will have available from Egbin power station the full installed capacity of 1,320mw,” he assured.

Please we need more

efisher:


“When we say we have 4,000mw some people call to say no it is a lie, but it’s true. This station Egbin presently has the capacity to generate 1,100mw, but in the process of delivering power to the people, it is fluctuating. Indeed, Nigeria has had over 4,000mw of electricity now, but what we are sending out in the average is 3,800mw because of the frequency control that regulates the supply.” he explained.

The point here is that 3800MW is what is available for use not what the capacity of our stations is.