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By Obas Esiedesa & Mariam Eko
The Federal Government (FG) has commissioned the upgraded transmission facilities in four major substations in Lagos, adding about 360 megawatts (MW) of transmission capacity to boost electricity supply across the state.
The projects at Ijora, Apapa Road, Alausa and Lekki substations are expected to strengthen bulk power delivery to residential, commercial and industrial consumers within the networks of Eko and Ikeja Electricity Distribution Companies.
Speaking during the commissioning of the projects, Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, said the investments were aimed at removing transmission bottlenecks and improving electricity reliability.
“These infrastructures have been here for over 25 years. What we are doing is commissioning new power transformers in Apapa, Ijora, Alausa and Lekki transmission substations. This is important as it will increase our wheeling capacity and also improve our delivery to end-users,” he said.
At Ijora, two new 100MVA transformers raised installed capacity from 90MVA to 230MVA, adding about 112MW, while the Apapa Road substation received two 60MVA transformers and modern gas-insulated switchgear, increasing capacity from 60MVA to 180MVA and adding about 96MW.
At Alausa, an existing 30MVA transformer was replaced with a 100MVA unit, raising total capacity from 135MVA to 205MVA and adding about 56MW. The additional capacity has increased power allocation to Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company to 80MW.
At Lekki, TCN commissioned two by 60MVA transformers, one by 300MVA transformer and nine additional 33kV feeders. The intervention doubled transformation capacity at the 132/33kV level from 120MVA to 240MVA.
Tegbe said the Alausa intervention alone could serve about 70,000 households, representing approximately 180,000 people, while the Lekki project would benefit about 100,000 customers, representing an estimated 400,000 people.
TCN Managing Director, Sule Ahmed Abdulaziz, said the projects were supported by the World Bank and JICA, with Shanghai Electric involved in execution.