Nigeria is tinkering with the idea of unbundling and also considers the partial concession of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).
The federal government thinks the decision would boost the efficiency of TCN in the government’s bid to improve power supply.
Director, Energy, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr. Yunana Malo, said during the March edition of “the Electricity Hub” conversation series on power that the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) had directed that a proper strategy should be mapped out for the unbundling of TCN.
He stated that the government believed that all the players in the energy value chain should be able to align with the needs of the power sector seamlessly, adding that the right environment is being created for the transmission component to match generation and distribution.
Malo said data was key to making decisions in the power sector, which needs clear-cut rules for its operations.
“Government has not taken a decision on TCN. We are on the drawing board, looking at all the possibilities. We need to plan and strategise, know what the objectives are; how to attain them and that’s what we are currently doing. The NCP has said that we should look at all the issues.
“Generation is growing and distribution is also becoming incrementally more efficient with the kind of interventions that are going on there. It is this kind of reasoning that made us to say, let us see how the transmission component can even be stronger.
“We are looking at the experiences of other countries and how they have been able to bring in private sector finance into the transmission component in a relatively short period of time and were able to achieve the kind of expansion and reduce levels of redundancy. That is the reason that the government is beginning to think that we should really look at the transmission component.”
He added that there are currently different levels of interventions in the industry with the most formidable and comprehensive being the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI), which is setting up a data management facility.
