Abuja DisCo guarantees 15hrs regular power supply in Minna, replaces damaged panels
Oredola Adeola
The supply of electricity to Minna, the Capital of Niger State, has been upgraded from about five hours to over fifteen hours per day, following the replacement of damaged panels, responsible for a regular trip off in the region, under Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) network.
This was revealed by Mr. Mahamud Keni, AEDC Regional Commercial Manager, Niger region, on Tuesday, in reaction to the efforts being made by AEDC towards rehabilitating its network to increase the availability of electricity.
According to him, the Abuja DisCo has spent over N500 million in Minna, in a deliberate attempt to address the epileptic power supply experienced by consumers in the state.
He said, “ The fund was part of the perfect strategies we deployed for the replacement of damaged equipment responsible for the epileptic power supply experienced by consumers in the state.
“We replaced 11 damaged panels which controlled the electricity feeders in Minna and its environs. These are panels that had been in operation for a long time, which was why we used to combine two or three feeders into one panel.
“As a result of this immediately the feeders get overstretched, the power supply will trip off, which often leads to interruption of electricity supply.
“Before now, we could not supply electricity for more than five hours at a stretch due to the damaged panels,” he said.
He said the move had resulted in the improvement of power supply witnessed by consumers in Minna and its environment in the past two months.
“We have boosted our supply, with a commitment to improved service delivery by staff as well as the evacuation of power supply to our network from the power generation.
The Minna Regional Manager further noted that seven damaged distribution transformers including 133KV and 11KV have been replaced with the network region.
This remarkable improvement, according to him, has improved bill collection over the last few months in the region.
Keni, therefore revealed that AEDC has set up a committee to monitor and tackle any emergency trip-off of electricity in the Minna area.
Mr. Adeoye Fadeyibi, Managing Director of AEDC, in a recent statement, revealed that the Abuja DisCo is committed to deloading the major overloaded feeders within its franchise network areas.
According to him, the DisCo recently installed 81 new distribution transformers with the repair of 78 existing ones, while also carrying out major maintenance on its 34 power transformers.
The AEDC MD said, “ We have reached various stages of discussions with some power developers for the contract to boost our supply with a good level of embedded power generation.”
Fadeyibi however revealed that the projects are initiated to quickly improve the supply of power to franchise areas, especially to Metropolitan FCT.
