Lagos Generates 48MW of Electricity via IPPs

…as Fashola writes Eko, Ikeja Discos

At least 48 megawatts (MW) of electricity have been added to existing power in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial city, in the last five years.

The electricity generated through collaborative investments in

Independent Power Projects (IPPs) by the state government and some private investors is, however, restricted to public institutions and for the powering of streetlights. State governments are disallowed from generating commercial electricity as power remains in the exclusive legislative list.

The government, however, argued that by hooking the public institutions to the IPPs, their initial consumption from the national grid were freed for redistribution to private institutions and residences, thus boosting supply and justifying the intervention of the government through the IPPs.

Some of the benefitting institutions include the state secretariat in Ikeja, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), court complexes, General Hospital on Marina, state library, Akute water plant, state police command headquarters, kilometres of street lighting in areas affected, among others.

The projects are 12.16MW Akute IPP; 10MW Island IPP; 10.4MW Alausa IPP; 8.8MW Mainland IPP and 8.5MW Lekki Peninsula IPP. All the IPPs aside ensuring steady power supply in areas connected have combined to eradicate about 380 generators hitherto in use before the IPPs were commissioned in the state, Damilola Ogunbiyi, the general manager of the Lagos Electricity Board (LSEB) said on Tuesday.

Lagos is said to be in need of over 10,000 megawatts, but it currently receives less than 1,000 megawatts from the national grid, resulting in frequent power outages in the state, and near absence of supply in densely populated areas inhibited by the poor. The effect is also being negatively felt by businesses, especially small enterprises groaning under the burden of having to operate with generators which they run with diesel and petrol at very exorbitant prices. However, the state is hopeful that the incoming government of Muhammadu Buhari, the president-elect, would leverage on the reforms carried out in the power sector by the out-going government of President Goodluck Jonathan to ensure adequate power generation to strengthen the economy.