The Transmission Company of Nigeria on Sunday disclosed that it recorded new national peak with the transmission of 5,222.3 Mega Watts of electricity into the national grid on December 18.
The TCN General Manager, Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah, said in a statement in Abuja that the achievement was the highest ever recorded in the nation’s power sector till date.
Mbah said the current peak transmission surpassed the 5,155.9 MW attained on December 8 and the 5,074.7 MW earlier recorded on February 2, 2016.
She said the TCN developed the Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion programme to enable it prioritise and execute critical transmission projects to properly key into the incremental power policy of the Federal Government.
She said: “This necessitated the clearing of the company’s stranded containers carrying various transmission equipment at the sea ports, to enable it complete previously abandoned projects to further expand the grid capacity.
“Of the 759 containers abandoned by contractors at the sea ports within the last five years, 454 have been cleared from March to-date.
“Payment for 193 containers has been made and they are being cleared, while payment for the outstanding 112 containers has yet to be made.”
Mbah further explained that all the 454 containers cleared from the ports had been taken to its various construction sites in Yola, Gulak, Katsina, Jos, Dambatta, Ganmo, Abeokuta, Onitsha and Benin.
She said other construction sites that the containers had been deployed to included Odoguyan, Ede, Igangan, Okene, Walalambe, Akwanga, Kachia, Kumbotso, Kaduna and Yola.
According to Mbah, the containers had been abandoned at the ports for two years to six years by contractors for various reasons.
One of the reasons, according to her, included the suspension of TCN’s Import Duty Exemption Certificate in 2013 by the Ministry of Finance.
She said other reasons were slow processing of IDEC by TCN in the past and inefficiency of the contractors.
She said: “The result was several uncompleted transmission projects in various parts of the country.
“TCN reiterates its commitment to continue to work to further stabilise, rehabilitate and expand the grid.”
Mbah urged all Nigerians to assist the company in safeguarding electricity installations nationwide.