Kaduna Electric has described as “factually incorrect”, the recent media report attributed to the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) that the Distribution Company (Disco) is rejecting power allocated to it for distribution to its customers.

A press statement issued by the Head, Corporate Communications of the company, Abdulazeez Abdullahi, in Kaduna yesterday, said that contrary to the report, the company has in many instances, taken more than its allocation, a development, which he said, cost the company millions of naira.  Some invoices submitted to the company by the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) indicated that Kaduna Electric received 8.34 per cent, 8.44 per cent, 9.42 per cent, 9.06 per cent, and 8.70 per cent in the months of January, February, March, April, and May 2017 respectively. This is way above its monthly allocation of 8 per cent of the total power generation sent to the national grid. 

“With exception of the last two months, the monthly invoice submitted by NBET has consistently shown that our company is taking much more than its allocation. Consequently, we have been paying dearly for our commitment to meet the energy need of our customers. It therefore does not appeal to logic and verifiable fact to list Kaduna Electric among Distribution Companies (Discos) rejecting load,” he contended. He also blamed TCN for intermittent interruption of power supply in the company’s operational territory, stating that Kaduna Electric lost 638.2 megawatts in August 2017 in 152 TCN requested outages.

“While it is not in our tradition to engage in blame game, suffice it to say that in August alone, TCN demanded that we drop load on emergency on 152 different occasions, which resulted in the loss of 653.2 megawatts.’’

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The statement also attributed some of the power failures experienced by the company to forced outages, an unplanned interruption of power supply due to faults, equipment failure or technical deficiency on power lines.

This problem was further compounded by poor construction and use of substandard materials by some state governments and local government councils in their rural electrification projects.

According to the Kaduna Electric spokesman, “some states and local governments do carry out electrification projects without consulting the company and often use substandard materials, which make the lines vulnerable and susceptible especially when there is heavy wind storm.”