The Federal Government will complete the concession of the $1.3bn Zungeru Hydroelectric Power Plant by March next year and will commence operations by the second quarter of the same year.
This follows the recent flagging off of the
bid process by the Bureau of Public Enterprise.
The agency had closed up the submission of
bids from investors on November 24.
Once the concession process is rounded off
in March, the commissioning will be held in the second quarter of the same
year.
Concession of the 700MW plant had been in
the pipeline since 2021.
The Zungeru project located at Zungeru,
Niger State is estimated to generate 2.64 billion kWh of electricity a year to
meet close to 10 per cent of Nigeria’s total domestic energy needs.
The plant which is funded by a loan from
China’s Exim Bank is the biggest of its type in Nigeria.
The private partner currently being sought
by the government will be responsible for repaying the loan, as the federal
government wants to reduce the government’s financing of the plant, according
to findings.
The winner of the bid will operate the
plant for 30 years before transferring it to the government.
In October, the BPE released a final
request for qualification for the project concession.
In July, the BPE said that the National
Council on Privatization approved the strategy and work plan to fast-track the
concession of the plant.
The enterprise had also said that after the
release of the RFQ, it would release a shortlist of prospective investors; the
issue of RFQ; evaluation of technical proposals; and shortlist prospective
investors for financial bid opening; as well as set a date for the financial
bid opening, all within a short timeframe.
The move to concession the hydro plant
comes on the heels of a consistently low power supply to the country’s 218
million population.
Although the Transmission Company of
Nigeria currently has over 12, 000MW distribution capacity yet, the company has
been able to wheel just about 4000MW.
When completed, the 700MW hydro plant will
go a long in boosting Nigeria’s power generation which has been hovering around
4000MW.
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