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Again, FG insists on TCN attaining 6,000mw wheeling capacity by December

By BusinessNews Staff on July 10, 2014

The Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, yesterday disclosed that the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) would have no justification for not meeting up with the December 2014 deadline given to it by the government to upgrade its electricity wheeling capacity to 6000 megawatts (MW).

This is just as the Operator of the Nigerian Electricity Market (ONEM) otherwise known as the Market Operator (MO) yesterday in Abuja unveiled a central revenue settlement system for the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI).

The revenue settlement platform for all stakeholders in NESI was initiated and developed by the ONEM in partnership with the Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as an automated revenue lifecycle management system.
According to the ONEM, the system is expected to help the market operator and other operators in NESI ensure equitable revenue collection and splitting among themselves.
It will also give the MO the tools to regulate market price stability.

Nebo said in his remarks while inaugurating the system that with the federal government’s commitment to upgrade the operations of the TCN and its affiliates, as well as consistent uncertainties about the capacity of company, TCN would have no excuse for failing to upgrade its wheeling capacity by the end of this year when substantial amount of electricity is expected to be generated and transmitted for distribution across the country.

“The board of the TCN has given the leadership focus. And the new management of the TCN has also been focused to make sure we move ahead. A lot needs to be done and we are deeply concerned about the capacity of the TCN to deliver the power that is generated.

“We keep getting reassurances that the capacity is there. But we will want to make sure that this is realistic and this is experiential, not just something done on paper but something we can really experience. Because we have no excuse for failing to have enough physical, tangible, palpable, wheeling power of 6,000 megawatts by December this year,” Nebo said.
He said the new revenue settlement system that the power sector was gradually embracing needed changes that would ensure proactive operations in the sector.

Nebo said: “We congratulate ONEM for a job well done. You have done a great job in taking the sector to a new level by the development and deployment of the NIBSS-PowerCollect system.

“You have taken a definite step towards the future and have gone ahead to develop a world class system for the sector. We are equally glad that rapid changes are happening in the sector that will lead to the attainment of global standards of power supply in the country.”

Meanwhile, Executive Director of the MO, Jang Bangnall, had in his remarks explained that apart from the MO, the new framework would also provide the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) the required tools for effective regulation of the sector, at the same time giving the ministry of power effective insight to monitor the sector.

Bangnall said all market participants would have the needed transparency for mutual trust and increased efficiency from the new system which has three major components; data capture and reconciliation, electronic invoicing and billing system as well as the payment settlement system, all of which leverages on the NIBSS Direct Debit Workflow.

“The MO has been working with its technical partners since December 2013 to get this system up and we are proud to announce that working with the NIBSS, we have been able to process payments for the April settlement period; disbursing over N11 billion in payments to the NESI.
We are happy to say that the pilot went smoothly with automated notifications sent out to participants in preparation for settlement,” Bangnall said.

He added that the distribution companies now had the platform to view and confirm revenue invoices and computations that birth them, as well as the generation companies and other service providers seeing their revenues and how much they have been paid or owed by the market.
“This is also the platform for NERC to view the market performance from both a financial and electricity generation perspective,” he further explained.

[This Day]

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