President Bola Tinubu yesterday flagged off the Gwagwalada Independent Power Plant Project of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
The Power Project is a 1.350MW combined cycle power plant with auxiliaries and a balance of plant to be situated on 547 hectares of land already acquired at Gwagwalada, in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
The project is expected to generate between $700 and $800 million annually within the first 10 years of operations.
The president spoke on Friday while performing the groundbreaking ceremony of the project’s 350MW first phase.
Tinubu said the project would ensure that all distribution bottlenecks are removed until the country becomes an industrialised economy.
He said the plant will improve power supply to homes and businesses, and create more jobs for young professionals and local communities.
“Government will ensure that all distribution bottlenecks are removed and will be removed. We cannot become a productive and industrialised economy unless you can generate, transmit, and distribute electricity,” Tinubu said.
“To accelerate our economic growth, we must remove every obstacle on our [way] to energy sufficiency. That this project is taking off so early in the life of our administration, it should serve as a notice to the residents of Abuja and indeed all Nigerians of our determination to bring positive change to this nation”.
The GIPP project is a 1,350MW combined cycle power plant that will sit on an already acquired 54.7 hectares of land in Gwagwalada.
The project is led by NNPC in a joint venture with China Machinery and Engineering Corporation (CMEC) for the EPC, and General Electric (GE) for the long-term service agreement.
According to a statement from the presidency, the plant will be powered by gas from the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) pipeline that is currently under construction.
When completed, the GIPP is expected to generate a revenue of $800 million annually.
Tinubu charged NNPC to ensure that the project is completed in the scheduled three years period.
It was necessitated by the need to deliver gas towards additional power generation capacity in Nigeria. Gas supply to the plant shall be through the Ajaokuta- Kaduna-Kano (AKK) Gas Pipeline Project which is currently in the advanced stages of construction.
Accordingly, the fuel requirements will be satisfied under a long-term Gas Sales, Purchase and Aggregation Agreement with Shell Petroleum Development Company Joint Venture (SPDC JV).
The project consists of three powertrain blocks of 450MW each.
Each block will include two General Electric GT13E2 gas turbine generators, two heat recovery steam generators, one steam turbine electric generator, one direct air-cooling condenser, a balance of plant equipment and a black start diesel generator.
On completion, the project will generate an average of 10.3 million Megawatt hours of electricity per year for sale to the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET).
The sales of the generated power will be through Power Purchase Agreement with the NBET to distribution companies under long-term agreements and direct sales to major off-takers.
China Machinery Engineering Corporation will construct the project under a turnkey Engineering, Procurement and Construction contract.
The ground-breaking event was attended by the Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPC Limited, Mele Kyari; the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Gabriel Aduda and his counterpart in the FCT Olusade Adesola, among other top dignitaries in the private and public sectors.
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