Providing Nigerians 24/7 Power Supply Is Possible- Engr. Idowu Desmennu

Amidst complaints of recession, hostile business environment and lack of foreign exchange, an indigenous Nigerian company has promised to give Nigerians 24 hours a day, seven days a week electricity supply.

Electricity is unarguably the backbone of any meaningful development but with prices of diesel and petrol hitting the roof, refrigerators turning to cupboards and businesses folding up, there is need for an urgent solution. In this chat with the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Andrew D. Idowu and Co., Engr. Andrew Idowu Desmennu, he speaks on what the company is doing to give long-suffering Nigerians the much needed power using mini hydro, turbine engine, solar and waste. Excerpts:

Our plan

The general public believes that the government and all those in the Power sector are doing nothing to solve the power problem, but the truth is that some people are having sleepless nights especially those at the top level in government and the distribution companies (Discos), only that all of them are thinking in their own different directions.

However, what we are doing now is what the last administration put up on Renewable Energy Policy of 2015 and Embedded Generation Policy Regulation of 2012, both for generation and distribution – the Independent Embedded Distribution Network and the Independent Embedded Generation Network.

We want to marry generation with evacuation to the grid of the Discos and look at the value chain involved. Again, we are generating at the kilovolt level and not at the megavolt level. We are generating 11 KVA and 33 KVA. We put it on the network of the Discos from where they will distribute to communities.

What we need from Discos

We are asking the Discos to concession a place to us; we will power the place, meter the place and collect the money through their account. We are not in competition with anybody; we are here to complement what the Federal Government is generating and what the Discos are doing. That was why they created the embedded generation window.

We want to complement the Discos because they don’t have enough funds to run metering and all that. By law, we can obtain our own permit to distribute power under what they call successor distribution companies which are Discos that bought from the Federal Government. So we can run an independent embedded distribution network under them; however, that will be competing with them.

Power generation

We are going to run a mixed renewable energy grid – gas, diesel, hydro and waste. In Igando/Ikotun area, they have given us 1,000 acres of land to run our solar farm. The farm will run for only 11 hours a day, then our turbines will take over in the night.

If the consumption during the day is more than what the solar can provide, the turbines kick in to augment. People are not even asking for 24-hour power supply, they are asking for 15 hours. Once you are sure of coming home to meet electricity, you will not rush to iron clothes; you only iron when you need to.

Nigeria requires 600,000MW

Energy requirement of the country is 600,000MW but we have less than 4,000MW – the gap is huge. People argue that we don’t need up to 600,000MW but the industries are generating their own power. Cadbury for instance is generating over 20MW, Protea – 6MW, Nestle, banks, corporate bodies etc., all generating by themselves.

We have 30 million consumers in Nigeria as against the 9 million being claimed. If it is one kw to one person, that means 9m is 9000MW and that is why they are saying we need 10,000MW. In this 9m, they are forgetting the industries, the SMEs. However, if it is 1 -5 persons per household, that is 30m and that is 30,000MW at 1kw per person.

We then have SMEs using from 5KV to 50KV, some from 25KV to 100KV and you have hotels. No hotel of note in Nigeria uses less than 100KVA. Put all together and you get 450,000MW that we are generating off the grid.

Source: Vanguard