The perennial and inconsistent power supply in Aba would soon end, says Former Minister of Power and Steel and Chairman of Geometric Power Limited (GP) Prof. Barth Nnaji.
Nnaji spoke on Thursday in Aba after meeting with members of the Aba Chamber of Commerce, Mines and Agriculture (ACCIMA).
Nnaji, whose firm pioneered the first Integrated Power Project (IPP) in Nigeria, said the company is ready to begin power generation and distribution in the commercial town by September as every bottleneck has been settled.
The former Minister said rehabilitation of infrastructure will be the first step towards the take off of Aba electricity business.
He said: “Geometric Power has been on the process of developing the first Integrated Power Project in this country, and it’s here in Aba. The intention is to deliver absolute reliable electricity to industries, commercial outfits, as well as the residential areas of Aba and environs.
“The project spans around nine of the 17 councils in Abia State. In this project, we built 140 megawatts of power plant here and four additional sub-stations to the three already existing when we arrived here, making it seven sub-stations.
“The issue of power distribution is that if a particular transformer is overloaded, you cannot get power because everything shuts down. The way to solve that problem is to have enough transformers at various places, at sub-stations, the big ones before you begin to have other smaller injections of transformers.
“We already have our power lines which everyone has seen; we have our own gas pipeline straight from Shell which connected 27 kilometres from the power station to Shell; all these things have been built. The project stalled for seven years but we are ready now to start. That is why we came to talk to the business community that we are getting ready to start, and the relationship we need to have with the business enterprises is what we are here to discuss. It has been a very torturous journey, but finally we are here.”
“It will be electricity for the nine councils of Isiala-Ngwa North, Isiala-Ngwa South, Osisioma, Ugwunagbo, Obingwa, Ukwa East, Ukwa West, Aba North and Aba South. We want it to be done as its being done now everywhere in the world with smart metres that will enable you know what you’re getting and at what cost; that’s how it’s going to be.
“There’ll be massive installation of smart metres everywhere within our coverage. It will not be at the cost of the off taker. It’s who owns the metre that matters. So, normally it’s the company’s; except in the case of the industry, there’ll be an arrangement…”
