PIPP LVI Genco plans 200mw for Lagos

As the embedded power scheme gains ground among power investors in Nigeria, PIPP LVI Genco Limited is proposing to build about 200 megawatts (mw) of electricity plant that would be scattered around the city of Lagos and beyond.

The company, which has already built a $25 million power plant at Lekki in Lagos which is currently servicing some Lagos State public utilities, is also set to put another 16mw in ILupeju and 6mw for Surulere.

Faruk Agoro, managing director/CEO of the company in his interaction with BusinessDay, said the company was currently developing other projects at Ilupeju, Mushin and Oshodi, Surulere and Orile, adding that these were areas the company could easily take opportunity for now, with priority being given to Ilupeju and Surulere.

The company is looking at investing between $10 million – $15 million in Ilupeju plant, while that of Surulere would cost less than Ilupeju.

He however explained that such public private partnership (PPP) would be in different forms. According to him, the plant in Ilupeju would be for the industrial areas while the one in Surelere may be with Lagos State government, but also hopefully that some industrial concerns there may key into the project.

“In ILupeju we would site 16 megawatts plant and 6 megawatts plant for Surulere. There are more industrial concerns in Ilupeju than in Surulere. Like I said, the idea is to keep replicating the project whether it is five megawatts here or 10 megawatts in another place by the time you put all these to- gether in about five or 10 years it would add up to 200 megawatts.

He said having the participation of the Lagos State government could be an added advantage because the government has so much facilities that the company’s plants can actually support. He said anywhere the company sited its plants it would make as much efforts as possible to tap into public infrastructure that are there, because it is known that power is the problem.

The PIPP LVI Genco boss said the most important thing is for the plant to be sited close to where there is gas pipeline because the problem of transporting compressed natural Gas (CNG) to locations where the plant are sited from gas stations is a bit of challenge.

On its expansion programme outside Lagos, he said they are looking at Oyo, Ogun, Edo states. “In Ondo State we started discussion last year but they did not come back. But Ogun State is looking more positive. Abeokuta and Ibadan are the possible places we are looking at”, he said.

Speaking further on the Lekki power plant investment in terms of how much the company actually spent, he said that a plant like that cannot take the investment in isolation.

The plant, he explained, was actually the cheapest of those things that are involved in the whole project, adding that the distribution network and all the street lights are about 25 kilometres network which stretched to Lekki phase one to Ikoyi, Bourdillion, Victoria island ,Saka Tinubu and Oniru.