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LCCI wants government to encourage embedded power

By on August 20, 2015

The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry has highlighted the need for the government to spur investment in embedded power generation by providing an enabling environment for the private sector.

The LCCI said the private sector must be empowered and attracted to actively participate in power generation and distribution.

Embedded power is power generated on a smaller scale and not centrally dispatched through the grid, but directly connected and supplied to a distribution network or customer load point. It entails a bilateral agreement between the generator (that is the company that generates the power) and the distribution company.

Speaking at a seminar organised by the Power Sector Group of the LCCI on Tuesday, the President, LCCI, Alhaji Remi Bello, said, “We expect to see government provide an enabling environment for private sector investments in the embedded power generation sector.”

He said the sector had been limited by myriads of factors such as poor gas supply, huge legacy debts and poor access to credit.

Bello noted that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission’s embedded power regulation allows an independent power producer to embed power within the network of the local distribution company without going through the trouble of connecting to the transmission network.

“Facing current realities, governments alone cannot fill the power supply and demand gaps in the economy. The private sector must be empowered and attracted to actively participate in power generation and distribution,” he said.

The LCCI president said the effort of the Lagos State Government in its captive power initiatives was timely with its redemptive values to the power sector, at least in the state.

Nevertheless, the whole process of power generation and distribution should be made sustainable while also ensuring operational and regulatory framework, Bello said.

The General Manager, Lagos State Electricity Board, Mr. Peter Okonji, who spoke on ‘Captive power generation (The Lagos Experience)’, said the state had reduced its reliance on the national grid through its independent power plants of combined capacity of 47.5 megawatts, thereby helping to make more power available for the rest of the population.

 

[Punch]