Africans In China

Federal Government has shown interest in moving ahead with the Mambila Plateau hydro power project with the allocation of N3.5 billion to the project in this year’s budget. The hydro project, according to sources, is going to be the biggest power project in the country, outstripping the 1,320 megawatt (mw) Egbin Power Station because it is expected to generate about 2,600mw daily or could go as high as 3,960mw.
China Gezhouba Group Corporation (CGGC), the main constructor of the Three Gorges project, was given a contract by government in March 2007 - under former President Olusegun Obasanjo to build the plant but it was gathered that the present government is reviewing the contract.
The $1.46 billion project is expected to be the biggest hydro power station in Africa and would be the largest hydroelectric power station Chinese companies have ever built in the continent.
Meanwhile, the N3..5 billion approved for the project means that government is still looking at doing preliminary works on the project because the cost as highlighted is about N200 billion. So spending N3.5 billion at this stage means government is just trying to start something on the hydro power project.
Business Day, however, gathered that what will be done include surveys and other preliminary works and that construction of the dam is expected to last six years and nine months; meaning that if the construction of the power station begins effectively, it could only be available by 2015.
The Chinese government had agreed to build the hydroelectric power station after its government and Nigeria signed big deals at the Beijing Summit of the second China-Africa Forum in 2006. But in the immediate term, the hydro power station cannot help Nigeria realise its power targets in the next two years, even as it is a good project for the future.
Besides the Mambilla Project, the nation also has other impressive hydro power potentials which experts say have been observed to be technically and economically viable. These include: Ikom - 730mw, Lokoja – 1,050mw, Zungeru – 450mw, Makurdi – 1,062mw, Onitsha – 1,050mw, Guraram – 300mw, and Dadinkowa – 39mw.
Outside the large scale hydro potential, some scale hydro potential has also been identified, while the small scale hydro potential is estimated at 3,500mw, each of the River basins in the country also possesses potentials for hydro power.
Obviously, Nigeria has a huge potential in untapped hydro power generation but tapping into it is going to cost a huge sum of money.
Right now, Nigeria has three hydro power stations at Kainji, Jebba and Shiroro, however, the life span of the Kainji and Shiroro dams is already threatened as Niger Republic is already building a dam on the River Niger, which experts say will drastically reduce inflow into the Kainji Lake.
Thus, there is a pressing need to develop more hydro capacity, but this could only be done effectively through public-private sector partnership, analysts say.
The Federal Government is already doing a lot more to remove obstacles hindering investments in the power sector, and it is only hoped that the process of removing the obstacles would be speeded up so that Nigeria can have more hydro power stations.

Author of this article: Martin Ayankola

Tags: Nigeria

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Africa-China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.