The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) may be unbundle soon to boost its efficiency improve power supply in the country.
Mr. Yunana Malo, the Director, Energy, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr. Yunana Malo, gave the hint said during the March edition of “the Electricity Hub” conversation series on power.
He told participants at the meeting that the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) had ordered that a proper strategy should be mapped out for the unbundling of Transmission Company of Nigeria.
He explained that the government believed that all the players in the energy value chain should be able to align with the needs of the power sector seamlessly, adding that the right environment is being created for the transmission component to match generation and distribution.
He said: “Government has not taken a decision on TCN. We are on the drawing board, looking at all the possibilities. We need to plan and strategise, know what the objectives are; how to attain them and that’s what we are currently doing. The NCP has said that we should look at all the issues.
“Generation is growing and distribution is also becoming incrementally more efficient with the kind of interventions that are going on there. It is this kind of reasoning that made us to say, let us see how the transmission component can even be stronger.
“We are looking at the experiences of other countries and how they have been able to bring in private sector finance into the transmission component in a relatively short period of time and were able to achieve the kind of expansion and reduce levels of redundancy. That is the reason that the government is beginning to think that we should really look at the transmission component.”
He stated that unbundling will require firming up the institutions and making sure each one plays the role and responsibilities assigned to it, including the three components of the TCN, namely the System Operator (SO), the Market Operator (MO) and Transmission Service Provider (TSP).
“Maybe it can be compartmentalised with the MO and SO coming together as one institution to be called the Independent System Operator (ISO) while the transmission component, which is highly operational and highly technical, can now be undertaken by another institution,” he added.
He said unbundling the TCN will require the federal government looking at the dynamics of the sector and working to ensure its independence.
“It has been highlighted that TCN takes care of five per cent of the value chain. But that five per cent is very critical. We are in the process of making sure we attain that objective,” he said.
