The British Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, Jonny Baxter, has described the Geometric Power Group’s achievement of providing reliable power in the Aba Ring-fenced Area, consisting of nine of the 17 local government areas (LGAs) in Abia State, as significant.
Baxter made the declaration on Wednesday during a visit to the Geometric Power Group, Nigeria’s only integrated power company, which operates the 188-megawatt Geometric Power Plant in the Osisioma Industrial Layout of Aba and Aba Power, the country’s 12th distribution company (DisCo).
He also praised the huge investment in the Aba Ring-fenced Area, amounting to over $800 million.
Accompanied by the Special Adviser to Governor Alex Otti on Power and Public Utilities, Engr Kachi Etoluo, the diplomat declared, “What you have achieved here is impressive. It is an innovative approach, and it is clear that significant work, investment and commitment have gone into building this project.”
The Aba Ring-fence is the only part of Nigeria not dependent on the national grid for electricity, as it generates its own electricity from gas-fired turbines manufactured by General Electric (GE) of the United States, the world’s oldest and biggest electricity equipment-producing firm, and distributes it within the territory.
Though all the electricity generated is currently consumed within the area, according to Cliff Eneh, a former senior engineer with the defunct National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) in Lagos, who is now an energy consultant in Lagos, there are plans to export excess power to the national grid when a new turbine belonging to Geometric Power arrives from Houston, Texas, in the United States.
The Geometric Power Group Managing Director, Mrs Agatha Nnaji, apprised Baxter of the immense support and cooperation “that we have been receiving from the Abia State Government in the finest spirit of public-private partnership”, asking other state governments to learn from it to enhance national development.
She pointed out some of the challenges facing Geometric Power, especially a lingering supply chain crisis.
Mrs Nnaji explained to the British diplomat that gas supply to the plant had not been as regular as it should be, attributing the interruptions to “the old age of the gas infrastructure built over 50 years ago”.
Engr Etoluo, who led the Abia State team to the visit, assured the Geometric Power management of the government’s “unrelenting support to you and other investors because partnerships are dear to Governor Otti and other people in the administration who are desirous of leapfrogging the state’s development”.
Baxter later toured the Geometric Power Plant and other facilities on the premises, including the steel tubular poles, which are buried 10 metres in the ground, with 10 metres standing above the ground, to withstand natural disasters such as earthquakes.
“This is the only place you find this facility in West Africa, if not Africa,” Engr Livinus Nmaram, the Learning and Development Director at Geometric Power, told Baxter.
“You can see them in world cities like San Francisco and Tokyo that are earthquake-prone,” he stated.