Nigeria: 25,000MW Siemens power project to begin

The Nigerian government has announced that the Siemens AG power project which plans to grow the country’s power delivery to 25,000 megawatts will be revived in the first quarter of 2022.

The Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu, made the announcement on Thursday, explaining that the German firm, Siemens AG, would begin operations in Nigeria soon and that activities to get the project going would commence in earnest.

Under the Presidential Power Initiative, Siemens is supporting Nigeria to raise electricity capacity to 25,000MW. The country’s power generation currently hovers around 4,500MW

But the project has been dragging since an agreement between the German firm and the Federal Government was reached on 31 August 2018 in Abuja.

Nigeria and Germany had agreed to cooperate with the aim of resolving the challenges in the nation’s power sector and expanding capacity for future power needs.

Aliyu was speaking at a workshop organised by Power Correspondent Association of Nigeria that efforts were ongoing to get the project up and running.

Aliyu, who was represented at the event by the Minister of State for Power, Goddy Jedy-Agba, said, “The Presidential Power Initiative which began in 2021 is in three phases and is estimated to be completed in 2025.

“The phases cover the upgrading and expanding of the transmission networks and distribution companies networks, improvement of access to affordable, efficient and reliable electricity, and providing support of industrial and economic growth in the country.

“This first phase which began in 2021 will go on for a period of 10 months with the end goal of pushing to 7,000MW. So far, there has been no hitch as the team is currently on the pre-engineering phase.

“The second phase will raise the availability to 11,000MW and the third phase will raise the availability to 25,000MW.”

Kola Tella