Rivers may Emerge First State to Provide 24 Hours Uninterrupted Electricity Supply

The Rivers State Government is blazing the trail in becoming the first state to achieve 24 hours uninterrupted power supply in the country.

This was disclosed during an interactive session between members of the media on Sunday and Governor Amaechi of Rivers state.

The governor disclosed that over N 30 billion had been set aside towards achieving the lofty goal.

Augustin Nwokocha, Rivers Commissioner for Power, disclosed that the administration was focused on power generation, transmission and distribution.

He said, ““Unlike the previous system where they were allgiven to one person, here we have a total of 10 outfits doing different things to ensure that we deliver on time.

“So what we have done differently is that we have divided this work into smaller units that are deliverable, faster and better.  We have also focused on getting the quality of men that can deliver this work and deliver them well.

“We have got Saipan Nigeria Limited to build a power substation. We have Weltech doing a medium voltage substation. We have selected people in that category, people who we believe can deliver based on their track record”.

Amaechi added that the state is currently pursuing the power transmission phase of the project.

He stated, “We have identified a very veritable vendor with very reliable technology in distribution and transmission, Sunder Electrical of France and we have entered a contract with them to supply us all the materials that are required to stabilize power supply in the city of Port Harcourt and its environs.”

“We have also given out contracts to build substations that will reduce the length of our feeders that sometimes stretch as far as 40 or 50 kilometers though all manner of places…so we are creating substations that will impact shorter span of the city with the capacity to back feed if a substation has problem, from another one. So that we will have reliable power supply”.

“Currently, the contract for the acquisition of the parts and components required for this exercise have been awarded. The contract for those who will do the implementation, the construction proper has been awarded, some of them in clusters of three substations, five contractors.

“We didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past where one person was doing generation, transmission and distribution. So, we have seven contractors doing the distribution substations each handling only three and then we have a contractor trying to remedy the lapses that are in the transmission backbone, and you have another contractor handling strictly generation”.