•Stakeholders hail EERC on transparency, proactiveness

In line with its vision to grow the state’s economy from $4.4bn to $30bn and meet the state’s power needs, the Enugu State Government says it is working to ramp up the state’s electricity capacity from the 70MW currently supplied by the national grid to 700MW through private sector investment.

The government said it was, however, eager to get the inputs of industry stakeholders into the state’s draft electricity regulatory framework to make the state’s electricity market viable.

This was even as developers, operators, investors, financiers, consumers, among other stakeholders commended what they described as the transparency and proactiveness of the state in its effort to build an electricity market where everyone’s interest is protected.

The state government and industry players spoke at a stakeholders engagement and consultation organised by the Enugu State Electricity Regulatory Commission, EERC, to review its draft regulatory instruments in the state capital on Tuesday.

Declaring the event open, Governor Peter Mbah, who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Prof Chidiebere Onyia, said the campaign promise to resuscitate pipe-borne water, improve security, education and healthcare delivery services, revamp and expand road networks, create the enabling environment for business development, job creation and economic growth would not be possible without a drastic improvement in electricity services.

“Therefore, we are opening up the entire value chain of the electricity market in Enugu State for all market participants to play, from supply to generation, transmission to distribution, electricity retailing through off-grid to mini-grid solutions and from metering to energy efficiency applications,” he said.

He assured the industry players of the continued independence of EERC to operate without political or administrative interference.

Speaking, the Chairman of EERC, Chijioke Okonkwo, who rued the present power deficits in the state, noted that the Commission needed to carry everyone along from the outset in order to build investor confidence required to turn things around.

“We have given ourselves some projected targets that within the next two years (2026), Enugu State should be consuming at least 300 megawatts and by 2030 we would have hit at least 700 megawatts.

“Right now, we are getting approximately 70 megawatts from the national grid. And this is not sufficient for us to say that we want to put ourselves in the position to industrialize. We want to change that narrative.

“However, industry players and operators want a place where they can carry out commercially viable businesses. They are here to make money, but they are also expected to provide services that are reliable and sustainable and also undertake these service for the long term and not the short term.

“So, this engagement will give them an opportunity to make inputs and let us agree on what these regulations should speak to in order to support their investment initiatives before the finalisation, adoption, and implementation of the regulatory framework,” Okonkwo said.

In his contribution, the Managing Director of Siemens Energy Nigeria, Seun Suleiman, commended the transparency of the state government through its regulatory agency.

“I see a lot of transparency here today. Each Commissioner is breaking down all the discussions in terms of the regulation and how you will get the permit. We are very happy because we also want to support a lot of these captive power investors with our ranges of gas turbines, which we have done in so many places,” Suleiman enthused.

On her part, the Acting Managing Director of the Infrastructure Bank, Nkiru Chime, said, “Enugu State is being very proactive in setting out how the electricity market will play. But funding is needed to drive the investment, and that is why we are here to provide an avenue to enable all the participants or market developers to attract the right kind of funding to develop the market. We believe that once the projects are structured correctly, once the projects are viable, you can attract an unlimited source of funding.”

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