Aba Power Electric, Nigeria’s 12th electricity distribution company (DisCo), has started to lose about 50MW daily from 9 am to 5 pm as a result of the ongoing scheduled one-week maintenance of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) facilities in Abia State, it has been learnt from industry sources.

But the DisCo says it is doing everything within its power to ensure that power is restored today to most of the areas affected by the outage.

“If the TCN had responded to our letter seeking permission to provide these areas with electricity generated from the 188megawatt Geometric Power Plant in the Osisioma Industrial Zone of Aba”, noted Edise Ekong, the Aba Power Brand and Communication manager, in a note to his team members, “areas like Opobo Road, Obingwa, Ikot Ekpene Road, Ukwa West, and East, among others, would not have been experiencing this level of outage”.

Other areas affected by the blackout include Aba City Centre, Ogbor Hill, Isiala Ngwa Local Government Area, Waterside, Umuode, and Ugwunagbo.

“If the TCN replies to our letter even right now, we will restore electricity to most of these areas within minutes”, Ekong continued.

“We apologise profoundly to our numerous customers for the delay in communications between the TCN and Aba Power which caused this outage, especially in this hot weather.

“Aba Power and its parent company, Geometric Power, have acted as proactively as possible”.

Though the Geometric Power Plant has enough capacity to generate and distribute the 100MW required in the Aba Ringfence which comprises nine of the 19 LGAs in Abia State, it imports electricity from the Niger Delta Power Holding Company of Nigeria (NDPHC) due to insufficient gas supply from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and its business partner.

According to sources in the power utility who do not want their names in the media because they are not allowed to speak to the press on the matter, Aba Power pays over two billion naira (N2bn) monthly to the NDPHC which supplies electricity to Aba Power through the TCN.

Ugo Opiegbe, Aba Power Managing Director, has disclosed that the Geometric Power Group is making an arrangement to obtain more gas supplies.

“Once we begin to receive more supplies to run our gas turbines, we will become more autonomous, that is, less dependent on the external environment, with all its caprices and volatilities”, Opiegbe told journalists recently.

“For now, we will continue to work closely with other electricity organizations in the interests of not just our customers in the Aba Ringfence but also the entire Nigerian people who benefit directly or indirectly from our work in Aba, the heart of Nigeria’s Indigenous manufacturing”.