Lagos to begin embedded power project in July 2018

LAGOS State government on Wednesday said the much anticipated the Embedded Power Supply Project will commence by July 2018, noting that all is now set for the take-off of the programme, a brain child of the present administration, targeted towards generating 3,000 megawatts electricity for the state within the next three to five years.

Commissioner for Energy, Mr. Olawale Oluwo, disclosed this at the ongoing annual Ministerial Press Briefing held at Bagauda Kaltho Press Centre in Alausa to mark the third anniversary of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s administration.

According to him, the project when it takes off would commence the journey to deregulate Nigeria’s power sector from Lagos State and ultimately achieve energy security for the state.

“Our Power Reform Programme which is the Embedded Power Project, all things being equal, will take off in July 2018. The House passed the law in January and the governor signed the bill into law in February. The implementation committee is already working and a lot of work has been going on the field and everywhere. We would do our Expression of Interest sometime in June and that process will kick-start this project,” the commissioner said.

Oluwo said the 13 locations for the pilot phase of the programme was currently awaiting approval of the State Executive Council and would be released soon.

He said that the power and gas sectors reforms were key interventions of the Governor Ambode led administration to correct the structural challenges in the power sector and gradually position the state for 24-hour power supply.

The commissioner said that apart from the reforms in the power sector, the state government had begun implementation of other sectoral reforms, including the downstream petroleum sector, the gas sector as well as the solid minerals sector and regulatory reforms.

• GDP: Lagos chamber calls for improvement in business environment

“The essence of all this is that we want to give Lagos, energy security and to achieve this, you must have security of electricity, gas and petroleum products,” he said.

Oluwo said that when the reforms were fully implemented in the next three to five years, the state’s reliance on gas from the Niger Delta region would be less critical to the state’s economy.

“The overall objective of the gas reform is to open the Lagos gas market to local and international players in order to make the Niger Delta gas less critical to future of Lagos economy (the ultimate goal is to make Lagos State to be fully independent of Niger Delta gas in three to five years,” he said.

Oluwo said plans were already in the pipeline to increase gas supply to Lagos from the present 500 million standard cubic feet (scf) per day to approximately 1.25billion scf per day in three to five years, adding that the state would soon sign long-term off-take contracts for gas found in any oil field in Lagos to power the Lagos economy.

He said seven agencies would be driving the reform in the gas sector as plans had been concluded for the reticulation of gas to homes starting from Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Ikeja GRA.