Abuja Disco Blames Transmission Failure for Poor Service Delivery

Chineme Okafor in Abuja

The Managing Director of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Plc (AEDC), Ernest Mupwaya has said the recent drop in electricity distribution services to its consumers was caused by series of transmission constraints recorded from faults at various transmission equipment of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) servicing it.

Mupwaya stated that contrary to claims it was part of eight electricity distribution companies (Disco) that allegedly rejected up to 1300 megawatts (MW) of electricity allocated to them recently by the TCN, it does not reject electricity allocated to it by the System Operator (SO) but rather taken load in excess of its allocation to meet its customers’ demands.

According to a statement from the Disco’s, Mupwaya said the proportion of electricity it supplied to its consumers in August, September, and October 2016 dropped below its usual allocation from the SO because of transmission constraints and not that it rejected allocations.

“We in AEDC don’t reject power allocated to us. In fact, when there is extra load in the system, we have always taken it in order to ensure that we meet the demands of our customers,” said Mupwaya.

He urged customers of the Disco to discountenance the claims that it was part of the eight Discos that rejected energy allocated to them, saying that various faults which occurred largely on some TCN equipment had made it difficult to transmit electricity to it.

Mupwaya listed the series of disruptions from the TCN equipment which happened in September 2016 to include a fault at Katampe Transmission Station, a relay failure on 60MVA transformer at Katampe, a fault on another transformer at Katampe, a letdown by a 60MVA transformer at Katampe, a relay problem on Lugbe’s 33Kv Feeder from Katampe, a fault on 60MVA transformer at Ajaokuta Transmission Station, a circuit breaker mechanism problem on L34 Feeder at Gwagwalada Transmission Station, as well as a voltage transformer problem which caused an outage at the Kontagora Transmission Station.

He also stated that within the same month, a fault on a 132KV incomer circuit breaker due to low SF6 gas occurred, an outage on a 60MVA transformer at the Transmission Station in Kubwa also happened, as well as another letdown from a 150MVA transformer at Katampe.

Mupwaya noted that apart from August, September and October 2016, its records showed that it utilised higher electricity than what was allocated to it in the other eight months of the year from January 2016 to November 2016.
He stressed that data on the cumulative power it utilised for the 11 months of 2016 showed higher net energy utilisation than what was allocated to the Disco.

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