HOW TO TACKLE POWER FAILURE IN NIGERIA, TAKING GENERATING STATION AND DISTRIBUTION AS A CASE STUDY BY IBITOYE EMMANUEL

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There is a saying; 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 you don’t have they cannot be supplied to the nation. How can we now tackle this shortage of power so that  the citizen will continue to enjoy their right of having steady electricity?

During the time of our former president late Umaru Musa Yaradua his policy target is 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. We are going to show the consumption rate from the consumers.

The power stations that were built those days can’t meet the demand of the populace today as the population and the demand consumption of electricity has drastically increased.

We all know the government has not been able provide adequate generating power station to meet our increasing consumption rate, what of the ones we have at a moment,  are they working to their full capacity?

Slide1

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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 at their full capacity.  For a country  that is blessed with natural resources to generate power from various sources i.e. water for hydro, coal for thermal, gas and diesel for gas station, what is the excuse?

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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 won’t.  And when the project  later pack up and we will start all over.

All the units of each machine in each station that are faulty can be repaired and  maintained. Effective maintenance of the existing facilities therefore will play a huge role in preserving them while also saving money.

DISTRIBUTION SECTOR

The rate of population growth and the inadequate power transformers, creates a situation that led to overloaded. and load shedding.  There are also series of noticeable ageing power infrastructures which are are due for replacement.

SOLUTIONS

Let us have a factory where we can locally be manufacturing power transformers.
each component manufacturing process is capable of adding to the local capacity building.

Solving the distribution challenges as well as local production of transformers will significantly contribute into addressing the supply challenge.

CONSUMER  
The citizens have the right to enjoy steady electricity, but the citizens too must play their part by paying for what they are consuming. Payment for power consumption will go a long way in helping the players attain sustainability and aid their capacity to maintain and repair existing facilities while also adding new.

Some consumers give excuse of inadequate power supply as the reason they refuse to pay for the service they enjoyed.

‘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 BYE PASSING of your prepaid meter’, so that there wont be cheating from the two parties

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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 can be reached at Seyeonline31@gmail.com

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

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