TCN MD/ WAPP Chairman, Usman Gur Mohammed

***Hires General Electric For Synchronisation Of Power Systems

By CLEMENT NWOJI, Abuja

The West Africa Power Pool (WAPP) has set the year 2020 as deadline for seamless interconnection of 14 West African countries’ electricity market.

Currently, only nine countries are interconnected, though not yet seamless because of the existing three islands and lack of synchronisation of its power systems and electricity market.

The Chairman of WAPP Executive Board and Managing Director of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Usman Gur Mohammed, made these disclosures while addressing participants at the synchronisation project kick-off meeting. The three-day meeting in Abuja centered on “Tuning of power system stabilizers (PSS), Field Testing of Governors and synchronisation of the WAPP network” contract.

He recalled that the last meeting of WAPP was in November, 2018, when it was agreed on frequency control which is part of the important milestone of what need to be done to synchronize the three islands in West Africa.

Mohammed explained that although nine countries are currently interconnected, but energy cannot freely flow among them because of existing islands and lack of synchronisation of power systems and electricity market.

According to the WAPP Executive Board Chairman, “The nine countries that are interconnected now are not connected seamlessly, meaning that energy cannot flow from Nigeria to Ghana directly for example because we have an island on this part which is part of Benin, Togo and Niger. Then, you also have Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso is another island. You have other islands on the other side.

“Currently, nine countries are interconnected, the remaining five countries will be interconnected when we finish the lines from Cote d’Ivoire to Sierra Leone, Sierra Leone to Liberia, Liberia to Guinea, and the other line that will be connecting Senegal to Guinea Bissau to Mali. Those lines will be completed next year and that means that the 14 countries will be connected next year.

“But for us to be synchronized so that power will flow from Nigeria to Senegal and from Senegal to Nigeria, we have to synchronize the systems and the synchronisation process is what we are doing now.

“Now for us to have complete electricity market, we have to synchronize. The ECOWAS electricity market which was launched in June, 2015 was part of efforts to realise the mandate of WAPP given by the authority of Heads of State and government of ECOWAS about two decades ago.

“WAPP was mandated to establish a mechanism and institutional framework for integrating the National power system of ECOWAS member countries into a unified national electricity market and regional electricity system which would ultimately be a regional electricity market with the aim of addressing the energy need of ECOWAS citizens by providing in the medium and long term, reliable and regular energy at competitive costs.”

He said that to achieve this the entire WAPP Interconnected Power System, which is currently operated as three separate synchronized Network Islands, must not only be wholly synchronized but operated as a single reliable Network.

“My utmost desire to oversee a successful and sustained synchronization, a key component of the regional electricity market roadmap, is a motivating factor for my ever readiness to go the extra mile in my commitment to the WAPP agenda.

“This project as per the scope of works elaborated is one of the most complex projects to be executed by the WAPP but I am hopeful and confident that you as representatives from your various companies would work to support its successful execution.

“To our generation companies here present, General Electric International Inc.(GE) would want to have access to your power plants to test your governors, tune your power system stabilizers and change their settings where required with the ultimate objective of achieving a successful synchronization”, he said.

He appealed to power generation companies to give GE all the necessary support, and access to their installations to be able to carry out the required tests, implement recommended settings where necessary so that WAPP desire to synchronize would be fulfilled.

Earlier, in a welcome address, the WAPP Director, Information and Coordination Centre, Nazif Abdulkadri noted that despite the fact that nine of the Power Systems are interconnected, the WAPP Interconnected Power System has over the past years operated as three (3) separate synchronous blocks namely: Nigeria – Niger – Part of Benin Block; Ghana – Cote D’Ivoire – Burkina Faso – Part of Togo – Part of Mali and Senegal – Part of Mali.

According to him, “Following a failed attempt to synchronize the Nigeria Power System to the Benin-Togo-Ghana – Cote D’Ivoire – Burkina Faso in 2007, and a similar failed attempt to Synchronize the Cote – D’Ivoire with the Mali- Senegal – Mali Power System in 2012, the World Bank provided the WAPP with 21.5 million dollars under the WAPP Technical Assistance and Network Integration Project to among others support efforts to synchronize the WAPP Interconnected Power System.

“In 2014, the Consortium Lahmeyer (now Tractebel) -CESI were recruited to carry out the Synchronization Study following which recommendations were made to ensure a successful synchronization.
Based on the study, NR Electric was recruited and are currently undertaking works related to the installation of SVC at Matam substation, PMU at 22 interconnection substations, SPS and inter-trip relays at some 5 substations.

“This project started in March 2019 and is ongoing.The second project for which reason we are here is related to PSS tuning, Governor testing of power plants, change of settings where required and most importantly synchronizing the WAPP Interconnected Power System once all conditions are fulfilled as per the recommendations of the study.

“The success of this project depends on all relevant stakeholders – WAPP, GE, Transmission and Generation Companies. And so, we are here today to understand what the project is all about, the scope of works, strategy for implementation, support that GE would require from all stakeholders during the data collection, field test measurement phases, OEM support just to name a few.”