The Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) has complained that it charges the lowest rate for electricity generation, a problem which the Managing Director of NDPHC, Mr. Chiedu Ugbo said was a problem caused by NBET.
“Our tariff is somewhere around N18 while the rest of the generation plants are about N23 per kilowatt hour. We are discussing this with NBET right now because it is what we met. They plugged in the 2012 number without escalation built into it, like inflation and all that, so while others kept going up, ours remained static, and that is one reason, but we are discussing because there is no reason why we should remain low particularly when we don’t get capacity payments,” Ugbo claimed. If the claim is true, then the station NDPHC is generating the cheapest electricity oin the country.
Any joy from this piece of new is however short-lived as the NDPHC will soon divest itself of 3 electricity generation companies built under the National Integrated Power Projects. This is according to the Managing Director of NDPHC, Mr. Chiedu Ugbo, who announced that the sales were now clear as the specific issues that led to the suspension of their sales have now been addressed.
The plants affected are the 634 megawatts (MW) Calabar, 1,076MW combined cycle Alaoji, and 506MW Geregu, which although had received clearance for privatization could not be sold due to specific issues.
“This privatisation process started in 2012 and moved to 2013 with the emergence of the preferred bidders. At that time it was a mix of market issues and internal issues that had to do with gas supply, completion of the power plants and evacuation.” Ugbo noted.
Some of the issues that had stalled their sales include a lack of evacuation facilities in Alaoji and Calabar and gas supply issues in Benin. However, with the completion of the Ikot-Ekpene switching station, the transmission line to Calabar and the transmission line to Alaoji, these issues have now been resolved and the privatization process can continue.
