Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has announced that Construction works has resumed at the site of the 700 megawatts (MW) Zungeru power plant in Niger State.
Fashola announced this in Lagos, while delivering a paper titled “Nigeria’s Electricity Challenge: A roadmap for change”, at a public lecture.
He said the Federal Government had succeeded in facilitating an out of court settlement between parties involved in a dispute that brought about the suspension of construction work at the plant.
The minister was glad to announce that over 800 workers have resumed back to site.
Fashola who said the completion of work at the station would bring about an increase in power, added that government is working to consider alternative and sustainable fuel supply to the 215MW plant in Kaduna which was designed to use gas, but is located several hundred kilometers away from gas sources, stressing that government has resolved never to site power plants far away from their fuel source.
“To achieve this, we are working round-the-clock within the ministry, and with other ministries like Solid Minerals, Water Resources and Ministry of Environment, to deliver an energy mix that will assist power production, investors and all stakeholders on how to site solar power in the North, hydro power in the North and North-Central, coal in the North Central and South East and gas in the South-West and South-South.
“This is our roadmap to incremental power, because it not only makes the power cheaper, if the fuel is nearer, but it makes it easier to plan and execute transmission plan, to ensure the power is evacuated and distributed,” he said.
He added that “There are also those who just require gas to operate and deliver full power such as the AES 240 MW plant in Lagos, the Geregu I and II plants in Kogi state where four turbines of 115 MW each simply do not have gas, the Omotosho and Olorunsogo power plants where only three turbines out of 12 turbines are working, and with the supply of gas we can increase power from the present 160MW to over 600MW,” the minister stated.
Located in Zungeru, a local community in Niger State, 150 km away from Abuja, the Zungeru Hydroelectric Power Project is expected to generate 700 megawatts of power for the nation.
if you must know, the Zungeru Hydroelectric Power Project was conceived in 1982 under the Shagari administration, but due to constraints of funds, construction work could not commence.
