Aba Power is set to commission a fresh 20MW line to the Owerrenta Industrial Zone on the outskirts of Aba, Abia State.
This fact was made known in Lagos this morning by a leading electric power consultant, Engineer Cliff Eneh, in an interview with journalists on new developments in the power sector expected at the beginning of 2025.
Eneh told newsmen in his office in Lagos, “The commissioning activities have started ahead of availability of the line in January 2025.
“The connection to the line would have started this month but for the delay in the various commissioning tests before steady power supply to the line”.
“Another compelling reason for not commissioning the new 20MW line this month is the fact that factories will soon shut down for Christmas and New Year holidays”, he added.
“The factories will see a new burst of energy as they resume from the holidays.
“It will be a wonderful New Year’s gift to manufacturers in Aba and the environs, which are famous for indigenous manufacturing and technology.”
Eneh, a former senior manager with the defunct National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), after working for years with the Texas Power and Light company in Dallas, United States, explained that factories in the area will receive a minimum of 24 hours of power supply daily.
“Not just power supply practically round the clock, but also quality power”, he stated.
“The electricity will be able to power the biggest industrial machines effortlessly, unlike the situation in some parts of the country where supplies can’t power smaller things like house air conditioning systems due to distribution transformer overload, poor feeder pillars, old and dilapidated wires, and other poorly maintained power infrastructure”.
The consultant, until recently the head of the Electrical and Electronics Department of a higher institution in Lagos, said that the lack of constant and quality power supply has caused several companies in the Owerrenta Industrial Zone, like other areas in the country, to depend on self-generation over the decades which is very expensive and pollutes the environment.
He identified some of the leading factories that have been self-generating electricity that can strengthen their power supplies by connecting to the new line as: Tonimas Lubricant Plant, Planet Vegetable Oil Company, Clover Paints Industries, and Valumbra Foods which produces spaghetti and pasta.
But he said that “with the new turn of events, factories in the zone can be assured of steady, quality, affordable and safe electricity”.