TCN Blames Cause Of Transformers’ Damage On DisCos Poor Distribution Networks, Lack Of Investments

***Urges Power Ministry, NERC To Recapitalise DisCos

By CLEMENT NWOJI, Abuja

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has attributed the cause of failures of its transformers to lack of investments by power Distribution Companies (DisCos) in Nigeria.

Apart from the lack of investments, TCN further maintained that the prevailing poor distribution networks of DisCos is hampering its power transmission process as well as the power generation by the Generation Companies (GenCos) because of the interconnected relationship in power sector.

The Managing Director of TCN, Mohammed Gur Usman, raised these issues while fielding questions from Journalists on tour of the companies transmission substations in Abuja including that of Karu, where failed transformer was being repaired by TCN in-house engineers.

This is even as he called on the federal ministry of power and the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to come up with regulatory policy and order respectively for the recapitalisation of the DisCos.

He explained that the DisCos were not investing in distribution networks and provision of protective devices to the extent that in event of anything on the distribution lines, it hits directly on the TCN transformers leading to consequent failure.

He cited that out of the existing 731 interface between the TCN and the distribution companies, only 421 are fully protected.

He said: “Let me tell you why we are having failures of these transformers. The distribution companies are not having investments in their networks and because they are not having investments, most of these transformers that you see here are supplying most of the customers of the distribution companies directly.

“So, there is no protection between our equipment and that of the distribution companies. So, if there is a fault in their equipment, it hits our transformers directly.

“That is why we are having this kind of failures and calling on the government, in fact the federal ministry of power to provide a policy directive for the recapitalisation of the distribution companies.
We are also calling on NERC to do a regulatory order that will lead to the recapitalisation of the distribution companies because out of the 731 interface between us and the distribution companies, only 421 is fully protected.

” The rest are not protected and those areas that are not protected are the areas we are losing our transformers. Recently, we have lost two in Abuja, Onitsha, Benin and if we do not have protection from distribution companies, we will continue to lose our transformers like this. This requires investment on the side the distribution companies.”

On the repair of the transformers, the TCN Managing Director said: “As I said earlier, most of these transformers are repaired in Lagos. But you see what we are doing now is that these transformers are being repaired by us here and like this one, they are not going to spend more than N5 million to repair it.

“But if we are going to transport this transformer which is 6 KVA to Lagos for repair, it cannot be less than N15 million from here. And if it goes to Lagos, they cannot fix it in less than six months before it comes back. That is why we decided to empower the TCN engineers to be doing it themselves.”

Also speaking earlier, Adams Umaru, Acting Assistant General Manager, Transformer Reactor, noted that before the current TCN management, the in-house engineers were not given chance to display their expertise.

He said: “TCN engineers have every expertise or capacity from mechanical, civil, electrical engineering. In fact any time we go out on factory acceptance test, we use to prove to them (the manufacturers) that we know everything because TCN engineers know circuit breaker, transformer but a foreigner knows only a part of the transformer.

“Any time we go out the foreigners are always surprised, asking us why we have come to buy. So, we just need government or management free hand and wherewithal, the sky will be our limit.”