There is a say; what you don’t have you can not give out, what you have in abundant is what you can give out, this is also applicable to our power sector, the power they don’t have they cannot supply out to the nation, how can we now tackle this shortage of power so that we can have enough power and the citizen will continue to enjoy their right of having steady electricity?
During the time of our former president late Umaru Musa Yaradua he tried to target 6000MW so that our supply of electricity can improve, but the sad thing is that we are still struggling and we have not met the target of the aforementioned figure since.
What are the things to do reach and surpass this targeted figure?
Firstly, lets analyze the statistics of each capacity of generation station in MW and the sum total of the output of all the generation stations in Nigeria, also we are going to show the consumption rate from the consumers.
The power station that were built those days can’t meet the demand of the populace again, day in day out the population increase and the demand consumption of electricity also increase drastically.
When the government can not provide another generating power station to meet these consumption rate, what of the one we have at a moment are they working to their full capacity, are the machines i.e. alternators/generator, shaft and turbine/propeller are they not aged? All this machine is like human beings too, when you were young the distance of work you can cover is more, but once you are old you won’t be able to cover it anymore.
The total installed capacity of all the generation stations is approximately 9000MW, which it has exceeded the target of 6000MW since the era of late Mr. Yaradua.
If all the units of the machines in each station are all working with their full capacity, and Nigeria we are blessed with natural resources as raw materials for all these stations i.e. water for hydro, coal for thermal, gas and diesel for gas station, so what is our excuse?
LACK OF MAINTENANCE OF RUNNING THE PLANTS
A friend of mine once said Nigeria can spend 10, billion naira to execute a project, but to spend ordinary 10,000 naira to perform routine maintenance we can’t, in which the project will now later pack up and we go back to zero point.
All the units of each machine in each station that are faulty can be repaired and continue to be maintained, either the stator or the rotating part of the generator can be maintained to avoid burning of the coils beyond repairing stage.
DISTRIBUTION SECTOR
The rate of population growth and the shortage of power transformer we are having in substation, makes the transformer to be overloaded, that’s why we experience shedding of light in some part of the country two (2) days ON, and one (1) day OFF, the wooden poles should be changed to concrete poles, the wooden cross arm should be changed to iron channel.
SOLUTIONS
We have a lot of human resources ‘Electrical Engineers’ that are very good in which I can boast and assure of that,
Let us have a factory, like china or other developed countries, that we can locally be manufacturing power transformer.
in producing the Casing of the transformer, we can partner with local company that are into steel manufacturing company in Nigeria, to produce the copper winding to be used, we can partner with some local cable manufacturing company locally, and they can be supplying this copper as raw material to the transformer factories.
The employed personnel can do the finishing of the job by assembling and winding of the transformers etc. this will help to provide and create more jobs for the youths in the country.
If transformer is surplus in the power sectors, over loading and shedding of lights will be reduced.
CONSUMER ASPECT
The citizens have the right to enjoy steady electricity, but the citizens too must do their part by paying for what they are using, so that the power sector can use this in maintaining the plants and the system.
Some consumer use to give excuse that they pay for what they are not enjoying, ‘I am doing research to build a device that will come with an application on your smart phones, you will be able to monitor the energy of power you consumed, it will also analyze daily, weekly and monthly of how you consume the energy in your house, this will also cure the habit of BYPASSING of your prepaid meter’, so that there wont be cheating from the two parties
CONCLUSION
Maintenance is the key, so far, the government can not build another generation station, then the one we have in existence we should try to maintain them to work effectively and efficiently.
IBITOYE SEYE EMMANUEL (ELECTRICAL/POWER AND MACHINE ENGINEER) Seyeonline31@gmail.com 07060985154
Reference:
Electrical Power System vol 1 second edition, Extract: Generating stations in Nigeria (Engr. Anthony Aduloju)
Assessment of Nigeria Power sub-sector, Extract: consumption rate in Nigeria (Engr. C.O. Osueke Ph.D)
NOTE: layman terminologies were used so that everybody reading this will be able to comprehend
IBITOYE SEYE EMMANUEL (ELECTRICAL/POWER AND MACHINE ENGINEER)
