Over the years, Nigeria has witnessed a less power supply. Many areas of the country experience about four hours electricity usage per day while some areas do not. It has been the agenda of the past presidents to put up constant electricity supply but to no avail.
Recently, the country launches GE unit to boost the rate of power supply in the country. GE has a long and established history of conducting some of the most respected employee development programmes in the world and evidence of this commitment to skills development was highlighted recently when GE Nigeria successfully carried out a complicated flange to flange replacement of a gas turbine.
In addition, the Transcorp Power Plant in Ughelli, Delta State was bought by the Transnational Corporation Group in 2013 and at the time, had a capacity of 160MW due to an old gas turbine being out of service and suffering catastrophic damage. GE replaced the old PG 9151 unit with a more efficient PG 9171 unit, which is equipped with a remote monitoring and control system.
This is the first time a flange to flange replacement was carried out in SSA on a power generating unit and the procedure made use of a more than 100 local contractors and workers. The plant, which is now operating with a capacity of 620MW can supply power to up to 2.4-million Nigerian homes.
Transcorp Group Chairman Tony Elumelu, who attended the commissioning said: “GE has been a great partner for Transcorp in getting this unit online. The reactivity and the commitment of the local teams has been remarkable. This illustrates our determination to invest in critical infrastructure, despite the current macro conditions. We appreciate GE’s assistance in Transcorp Power’s mission to light up Nigeria.”
It was confirmed that the new unit will also enable operators to predict and analyze operations from the plant control room, resulting in a reduction in manual interventions, which in turn reduces the associated safety risks.
At the commissioning, Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, said: “Feats as we are witnessing today put to bed some of the uninformed comments that stakeholders have not done anything.” He added that his ministry was focused on enhancing power distribution in the country.
Ahmad Zakari, Executive Service Director for GE Power Services Nigeria, said: “The new unit comes with a higher efficiency output of 33% compared to older units that perform at 28%. This readily translates into important savings for the customer as less gas is needed to produce the same output.”
“GE has been consistent in its commitment to continue to invest and grow local capabilities in the country and the continent. Every day, our local teams break new frontiers as they support customers with efficient technical support that would otherwise have come from outside sources,” Zakari further explained.
Nigerians are happy with this recent development. They believed it will boost their standard of living since most of their daily activities are usually successful with power supply. “This is a great step to light up Nigeria” one of the citizens said.
