Power Holding Company Nigeria
The Egbin Power Station in Lagos, the biggest electricity-generating plant in Nigeria, is billed to supply 1,200 megawatts of power to the national grid by December this year, as part of the ongoing efforts to recover the lost capacity of the plant.
With a total of six units, each with a capacity of 220 megawatts, Egbin Power Station has an installed capacity of 1,320 megawatts. Obsolescence of equipment and long years of underfunding, have led to under-capacity utilisation as some of the units had failed, resulting in low plant reliability, frequent unit trips, reduction in available plant capacity and poor operational efficiency But the new Chief Executive Officer of the station, Mr Mike Uzoigwe, told THISDAY in an exclusive interview recently that only Unit 6 was yet to be rehabilitated.
“Over the years, we have had problems of obsolescence of spare parts and other equipment. But since government started tackling the problems of the power sector very seriously since the time of former President Obasanjo, we have been able to bring back two units that were down before Obasanjo came to power.
“So, unit 6 is the only unit that is still down, but government has been sponsoring its repair since the past two years. By the grace of God, we will be able to bring it back by the end of this year and be in a position to approach 1,320megawatts. Now, we have scaled through 1,000 megawatts; we are doing more than 1,000 megawatts. “When we bring in 220 megawatts from Unit 6, we will be approaching 1,320 megawatts. But even when we have the capacity to do 1,320mw, we will be doing like 1,200mw to be able to give some of the machines, which have long not been overhauled chance to be able to pick up,” he said. On the contract for the replacement of Re-heat Tube Coils in Unit 6, which was being executed by KEPCO Energy Resources Limited, with completion date scheduled for October 2010, the Egbin boss said the contract was completed on schedule.
He also spoke on the contracts for the replacement of the damaged auxiliary Transformer in Unit 4 and the replacement of Unit 6’s Automative Voltage Regulator (AVR) Thyristor panel, which were being implemented by Marubeni Engineering (WA) Limited of Japan, with completion dates scheduled for June 2011 and April 2011, respectively. “The transformer is at the wharf now; we went to Thailand for factory inspection and they have shipped in the transformer to the Wharf. What is remaining is the commissioning of the transformer. We are using GE (General Electric) people to rehabilitate the turbine-the turbine we removed in Unit 1 that cracked in 2001. We are using it to do Unit 6. So, those people have to come and re-grind it and will bring Unit 6 back before the end of this year,” he said. He said work was ongoing on the emergency rehabilitation of Unit 1’s Turbine Generator by Marubeni and the complete overhaul of the Demineralised Water Plant and Water treatment plant by Hagger Elsasser of the United Kingdom.
Author: Chief Editor
Nigerian Community,News, Events and more
