The board of the African Development Bank during its board resolution at their headquarters in Abidjan on Wednesday approved $210m (N64.26bn at the official exchange rate of N306 to $1) for power projects across the country being handled by the Transmission Company of Nigeria.
The transmission company that disclosed this further said that the fund would be used for its NTEP-1 projects, which it described as one of the projects under the Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Programme financed by AfDB.
It said the project was targeted at rehabilitating and expanding parts of the transmission grid in the North-West, South-South and the South-East. It was gathered that the project would reconstruct old transmission lines and build new ones, as well as construct new substations to further increase TCN’s transmission capacity.
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The General Manager, Public Affairs, TCN, Ndidi Mbah, said although the approval had just been given, the company had already concluded environmental studies, including resettlement action plan. She explained that people who would be affected by the acquisition of the Right of Way for the proposed transmission lines had been identified and this had been submitted to AfDB.
“Also, the advert for the pre-qualification of contractors had been carried out under advance procurement and evaluation of submissions from consultants that submitted ‘Expression of Interests for the procurement of consultancy for the project is ongoing,” Mbah stated.
She said the procurement processes for the project were about 70 per cent complete, meaning that execution of the projects under NTEP-1 would soon commence in earnest. The TCN stated that in North West, the projects to be executed included the construction of 212km double circuit 330kV quad conductor (Kaduna to Kano). Others include the installation of 2x150MVA and 2x60MVA transformers and bay extensions in Zaria; and installation of 2x150MVA and 2x60MVA transformers with associated bay feeders and bay extensions in Kaduna Millennium city. Also, it would see to the installation of 2x60MVA transformers and outgoing feeders in Rigasa Kaduna; and the installation of 2x60MVA transformers and out–going feeders in jaji, Kaduna.
It said the substations would all have turn in and turn out transmission lines. In the South-South and Sourh-East, NTEP-1 would reconstruct the 107km double circuit Delta-Benin transmission lines into a 330kV quad line; and reconstruct the 138km Alaoji-Ihiala-Onitsha single circuit line into 330kV double circuit quad line. The TCN noted that NTEP-2 which would execute projects mainly in the North-East and parts of the central states of the nation was also in the pipeline and had reached advanced stage on the funding processing. It also noted that the time frame for execution of all the NTEP-1 projects would be 24 months after award of contracts.
Juliet Ekwebelam
