Aba Power Ltd, a subsidiary of Geometric Power, will start to supply power from one of its three turbines to consumers in the Aba Ring-fenced Area this weekend rather than in two weeks as originally scheduled.
The project was initially billed to commence supplies to commercial customers 13 days after commissioning in line with technical protocols, sources say its chairman, Professor Bart Nnaji who is a former Minister of Power, has directed the utility’s engineers to provide power to the people without fail this weekend.
The Geometric Power 188 Megawatt thermal plant and the Aba Power company to distribute electricity to nine of the 17 local government areas in Abia State were commissioned last Monday by Vice President Kassim Shettima on behalf of President Bola Tinubu in the Osisioma Industrial Layout in Aba, Abia, State, 24 hours after the first turbine was turned on.
“Non-critical technical procedures must be eliminated”, the Geometric Power founder told his team of local and foreign engineers, according to three highly placed officials who do not want their names because they were not authorized to speak to the media on this matter.
Officials of the National Control Centre (NCC) at Oshogbo in Osun State were billed to inspect the Geometric Power facility next week as one of the technical requirements, but they will now arrive this week, according to the sources who disclosed that Nnaji, is pulling all the strings and using his network.
When one of Geometric Power’s three turbines built by General Electric of the United States goes into commercial operations this weekend, it will supply 47MW, which is almost double the 25MW the Aba Metropolis and the environs currently receive from the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) through the national grid, explained Cliff Eneh, an energy consultant in Lagos.
Eneh, who used to be a senior engineer with the National Power Authority (NEPA) after working for the Texas Power and Light Company in the United States, said the second turbine, will increase power supply to the Aba Ring-fenced Area to 94MW, thereby meeting Aba energy requirements for now and stabilizing power supply to the area.
“Nigeria needs a number of generation and distribution firms with state-of-the-art facilities like Geometric Power, which is an integrated electricity group because it has both generating and distributing subsidiaries,” he said.
