WAPP Chairman Tasks Member Countries On Prompt Implementation Of Agreed Decisions

WAPP Chairman, Usman Gur Mohammed

*Cites Nigeria’s Attainment Of 49.5, 50.5 Frequency Control

By CLEMENT NWOJI, Abuja

The Chairman of West Africa Power Pool (WAPP) Executive Board, Usman Gur Mohammed, has tasked ECOWAS member countries to ensure the implementation of decisions taken towards achieving unified regional electricity market.

He specifically charged member countries to ensure the implementation of decisions agreed upon for the synchronization of systems, explaining that ECOWAS cannot achieved a unified regional electricity market without single synchronised systems.

Mr. Mohammed who is also the Managing Director of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), spoke while delivering an opening speech at a three-day Joint Technical Working Group meeting of WAPP taking place in Abuja, Nigeria.

The ECOWAS Regional Electricity Market was launched June, 2018 as part of efforts to ensure the realisation of the mandate given to the West African Power Pool (WAPP) by the authority of the Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS about two decades ago is realised.

WAPP was mandated to establish mechanism and institutional framework for integrating the national power systems of ECOWAS member States into a unified regional electricity market with the aim of addressing the energy needs of the ECOWAS citizens by providing in the medium and long term, a regular and reliable energy at competitive cost.

To show the commitment of Nigeria towards realising this, he said already, “We have for the first time, forced the implementation of the frequency control which led us To achieve a frequency control of 49.5 and 50.5. That was achieved in in June, 2017 and it was sustained.

“Also, about one month ago, we have decided to implement a strategy that will enable us to achieve frequency control of 49.80 to 50.20 which is the WAPP standard. We have written all the letters to ensure that the systems are working according WAPP standards.”

He assured the participants from West African countries that Nigeria will implement immediately whatever that is agreed on.

The WAPP Chairman stressed that to be able to.provide ECOWAS citizens a regular and reliable energy at competitive cost, there is need to ensure that the entire WAPP interconnected power system currently operated as three synchronous blocks must be successfully synchronised and operated reliably.

On.his part, the WAPP Director, Information and Coordination Centre, Abdulkadir Nazif, rrecalled that the Technical Working Groups of WAPP were established to be the backbone of technical coordination among WAPP member utilities and to support the implementation of the synchronization study recommendations related to the operations, planning and protection of the WAPP Interconnected Power Systems.

He enumerated that within the three days, some of the things to be done include: review and discuss on the level of implementation of the prerequisites and conditions precedent recommended by the synchronization study; discuss the status of follow up actions plan for synchronization project; discuss the frequency performance of WAPP system based on the frequency quality targets recommended by the synchronization study; among other things.