East-West Super Grid enters procurement as Nigeria puts its cost at $2bn
Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, says procurement has begun on a $2bn East-West Super Grid with capacity for at least 19,000MW, alongside repairs that have taken supply to the Lagos complex past 1,000MW and a technical audit of power assets, some of them more than 50 years old.
Procurement has begun on Nigeria’s East-West Super Grid, a transmission project the Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, says will cost “about $2 billion” and give the country capacity for “at least 19,000 megawatts”, with completion possible within two years. Speaking on TVC on 9 November, Tegbe said the line would connect major transmission corridors and complement the existing national grid, and Nairametrics reported a route through Funtua, Gwagwalada, Ilorin, Benin, Epe and Ikot-Ekpene, though Tegbe did not say how the project will be financed.
The government is targeting 20,000MW of generation, and Tegbe pointed to the 3,000MW Mambilla hydropower project and to 21 dams along the Sokoto-Badagry Expressway corridor that have been identified for small hydropower, where talks with investors are under way.
A technical audit of the sector is identifying which assets need repairing or replacing, after finding deficiencies in transmission towers, insulators, conductors and relays, and Tegbe said some lines and facilities are more than 50 years old. Equipment replacement is due to begin in the coming months, according to his statement reported by the News Agency of Nigeria.
Supply to the Lagos complex passed 1,000MW after the Benin-Egbin 330kV line was repaired and returned to service, Tegbe said on 9 November, with power restored to many areas of Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Kwara and the FCT that had been affected by the disruption. Tegbe, who apologised for the outages, said stable supply could take three to five years, and he expects the Oshogbo-Ikeja West line to be the next addition to Lagos. “When restored, the line is expected to provide an additional 400 megawatts into the Lagos electricity complex,” he said.




