The Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO) has linked the epileptic power supply in its franchise area of Kano, Katsina, and Jigawa States to a drop in Megawatts received from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of KEDCO, Abubakar Yusuf disclosed this at a news conference at the company’s headquarters in Kano city.
Yusuf said KEDCO had been receiving only 180 Megawatts from the transmission company in the last three months
He described this as "grossly inadequate" while disclosing that the area KEDCO covers requires 600 Megawatts.
“We need 600 Megawatts to adequately serve our customers in the three states, which are our franchise areas,” he said.
Yusuf called on KEDCO customers in the three states to bear with the company as the problem was not peculiar to Kano but the whole country.
The KEDCO CEO also revealed that the fire outbreak at Dan’agundi Transmission Station on Sunday seriously affected the company’s operations.
According to him, "One of the high-performance capacity transformers in the transmission station was burnt beyond repair while the other one has to be repaired.”
He further revealed that the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has salvaged the situation and restored electricity to the affected feeders.
The KEDCO Boss also laments over increasing vandalism, revealing that the company is averaging "3 acts of vandalism on its transformers" daily across its franchise areas.
Yusuf also identified electricity theft by customers as another major setback, just as he laments over the underpayment of electricity, which he said is contributing to the "liquidity crisis in the power sector".
Yusuf said its new core investor, Future Energies Africa, FEA, plans to “build up to 200MW of incremental capacity through 100 mini-grids and embedded generation, to augment electricity supply to our valued customers.”
He said an example of such intent is: “The 1MW Zawachiki Power Plant in Zawachiki, which is already in use, and Zawachiki and Gida Dubu communities are currently enjoying no less than 20 hours of supply.
Also, the 10MW Haske Power Plant within Challawa, Kumbotoso LGA, developed and funded by NSIA has already undergone a pre-commissioning test, and we have already indicated intention to sign a bilateral agreement to procure the power, all in our efforts to improve supply to the good people of Kano, Katsina, and Jigawa States.”
He urged the public to intensify surveillance in their communities to tackle the increasing cases of transformer vandalism.
