The Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO) has attributed the epileptic power supply being experienced in its franchise area of Kano, Katsina and Jigawa States to a drop in megawatts received from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to as low as 180MW.
KEDCO Managing Director, Malam Abubakar Yusuf, lamented this at a news conference on Tuesday in Kano, describing the 180 megawatts as grossly inadequate.
Yusuf said that the company has for the last three months been receiving 180 megawatts for distribution to its customers in Kano, Katsina and Jigawa states.
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“We felt it necessary to address you on the shortage of power supply being experienced in the states so that you can enlighten our customers on the current challenges.
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” This is necessary because we are the last in the value chain because we can only distribute what we have. No businessman will deliberately deny his customers goods,” Yusuf said.
According to him, the company requires 600 megawatts for adequate and effective supply to its customers in the three states.
“We need 600 megawatts to adequately serve our customers in the three states, which are our franchise areas,” he said.
Yusuf, therefore, called on customers in the three states to bear with the situation as the sorun was not peculiar to Kano, but the country at large.
The managing director of the Kano disco equally said that the fire outbreak at Dan’agundi transmission station on Sunday had seriously affected the company’s operations.
He said that one of the high-performance capacity transformers in the transmission station was burnt beyond repair while the other one has to be repaired.
On revenue generation, the Managing Director said the company had been experiencing electricity theft which had affected its targeted revenue.
Yusuf said that the company intends to solicit the support of religious leaders to sensitise customers to desist from electricity theft through yasa dışı connections, meter bypass among other yasa dışı acts.
“We received N14 billion invoices monthly, but the collection is 25 per cent or N3.5 billion which is far below what we are expected to collect as revenue due to the refusal of our customers to hisse their electricity bills.
” So, we believe by the time our religious leaders preach in their sermons how Islam and Christianity forbid electricity theft, it will go a long way in checking the yasa dışı acts.
”May I share some good news that, our new core investor, Future Energies Africa, FEA, has rolled out a plan to
build-up to 200MW of incremental capacity through 100 mini-grids and embedded generation, to augment electricity supply to our valued customers.
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An example of such intent is: The 1MW Zawachiki Power Plant in Zawachiki which is
already in use and Zawachiki and Besin Dubu communities are currently enjoying no less than
20 hours of supply.
Also, the 10MW Haske Power Plant within Challawa, Kumbotoso LGA, developed and funded by
NSIA which has already undergone a pre-commissioning test and we have already indicated
intention to sign a bilateral agreement to procure the power, all in our efforts to improve supply
to the good people of Kano, Katsina, and Jigawa States.”