The management of Eko Electricity Distribution Company has said that over N2 billion was committed to maintenance and reinforcement of facilities within its network in the last six months.

The Chief Executive Officer of the zone, Mr Oladele Amoda, disclosed this at the quarterly press briefing of the zone in Lagos. Amoda stated that the zone had witnessed tremendous improvement in distribution network reinforcement and equipment upgrade, adding that all challenges were being turned into opportunities for improved services.

“We have spent over N500 million to replace several obsolete 33KV and 11KV switchgear in several injection substations around Festac, Satellite, Amuwo, Ademola, Berkey, Orile, Coker, Lekki, Oke-lra kekere among others.
“Another N750 million had been spent to construct additional 500KVA/300KV distribution transformers installed to reinforce the network,’’ Amoda stated.

According to Amoda, all the installations and projects could not have been achieved without the total support of the Federal Government through the Ministry of Power. The Ministry of Power, according to him, had given the zone tremendous support and encouragement through funding.

He said that projects were channeled towards improving the country’s power sector to achieve sustainable and effective power supply. Amoda however, assured that many Nigerian Independent Power Projects (NIPPs) would come on line before the end of the year, adding that out of 27 NIPP projects within the zone, 10 had been completed and commissioned.

He said that government had also deployed 50 KV transformers to various NIPP projects so as to reduce frequently vandalism usually occurred in big transformers.

On pre-paid meter, Amoda said that about 28,000 pre-paid meters both single and three phase meters had been installed in the last six months. “All customers that have faulty and obsolete meters numbering 130,000 are expected to be metered within the next 18 months.  Starting from July, we have planned to installed 8,000 meters to replace obsolete and faulty ones in the system,’’ he said.

He, however, assured customers that meter would be supply free of charge to customers pending the fixing charge of connection fees by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).

Amoda said that the zone had also abolished arbitrary estimation of customers without functional meters, adding that estimations shall be based on a designed methodology based on supply availability both on feeder lines and transformers.

 Amoda further assured Nigerians that improvement in power supply would start to manifest from end of July.

“This is because the Federal Government’s effort in ensuring that gas supply to all power stations have been addressed,” he said.

 He said the ongoing NIPPs around the states would also contribute to the massive improvement in the supply.

The PHCN boss said that more stations would  have access to gas before August, adding that about 1,000 megawatts was expected to be channeled to the national grid through NIPP.

Eko Disco currently receives about 350 megawatts from the transmission control in Oshogbo as against 450 megawatts that was initially received. He argued that the shortfall was due to drop in the country’s power generation, adding that if the supply increases, the zone would distribute more and better electricity. “Eko has the capacity to take more than 600 to 700 megawatts to complements the existing one if it’s available,”he said.

Speaking on the zone revenue generations and debt profile, Amoda said that the zone debt profile stood around N7 billion to N8 billion in which large junk of it came from government agencies and parastatals.