FG, Siemens to sign electricity deal Monday

The Federal Government of Nigeria is billed to sign electricity road map agreement with German-based Siemens today.

The deal is a fallout of a meeting President Muhammadu Buhari held with German Chancellor, Angela Merkel on August 31, 2018.

The Global Chief Executive Officer of Siemens, Joe Kaeser, will meet with President Buhari today in Nigeria to sign a Letter of Agreement on the Nigerian Electrification Roadmap which was submitted to President Buhari last year November.

Several meetings have been held by power distribution companies, other stakeholders in the power sector and the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari.

Such meetings focused on the key areas where the help of the German government is needed.

The partnership on the road map for power generation will aid the activities of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and the eleven DisCos within the country, including software maintenance and support for four years.

A source maintained that the project can be compared to that of Egypt megaproject.

“This project is similar to the Egypt megaproject and the Iraq electrification project recently awarded to Siemens,” the report quoted a source.

The Egypt megaproject was handled by Siemens, and according to a statement on the company’s website, “Siemens successfully managed to boost Egypt’s power generation capacity by over 40% by connecting 14.4 gigawatts to the Egyptian national grid.

“This is enough power to supply over 40 million Egyptians with reliable electricity and provide a much-needed power to different industrial sectors.”

The leading supplier of systems for power generation has been in and out of Nigeria, holding several meetings and consultation, as well as electricity field observation dating back to October last year, a month after the meeting between President Buhari and the German Chancellor.

Nigeria has been struggling with power distribution, limited distribution networks, limited transmission line capacity, huge metering gap, and fall of gas supply, despite the privatisation of the power sector which produced six generation companies and eleven DisCos.

The roadmap by Siemens is expected to resolve these challenges.

Part of the roadmap is a workshop facilitated by Siemens in October with the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission and the TCN.