Afam Power eyes over 300Mw

Trans-Afam Power Limited, the new owners and operators of Afam Power Plant, plans to increase its power generation before the end of the year to over 350 megawatts (Mw).

The company, a subsidiary of Transactional Cooperation PLC (Transcorp), also said it has improved operation in the multi-billion dollar Power Station from 48Mw to 188Mw in less than two years.

The President, Transcorp, Ms Owen Omogiafo and Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (CEO),Trans-Afam Power Limited, Vincent Ozoude, spoke in separate interviews after inaugurating the generator cleanroom at the power station in Afam Community in Oyibo Local Government Area of Rivers State.

The cleanroom is meant for the repair, rehabilitation of gas turbine generator rotors to save capital flight and transfer technology to staff.

She said: 'When we took over the Afam Power Plant on March 10, 2021, it was not like what we're seeing, the management can attest to this, and it took us a lot to recover our gas turbine, to increase power generated for the people of the country and by the our own local engineers.

'It is on record that we've recovered Afam 5 GT-20, it came back in September last year, with that we have additional 138Mw to the national grid, to make more power available to Nigerians, and more.

'Also, Afam GT-17 and 18 are also ready to be turned on.'

The President added: 'There is also the hope that Afam 3 fast-power (aero-dynamic technology) will soon be up and running as the engineer in charge has hinted that they are moving up on this new technology that will bring an additional 240 Mw to the grid this year.

'These are eight turbines of 30-30-30 megawatts.They have four turbines ready. They will start them as soon as they have gas and discussions are already going on for gas to be provided.'

Corroborating Omogiafo, Ozoude said the essence of setting up the cleanroom within the plant premises. 'For an operation like ours, we use such facility to repair generator rotors that tell us to minimise the time line of shipping generator rotors out of the country to repair centers in the Middle-East, in Europe and America, then back to Nigeria.

'Think about the logistics associated with shipping it, how about the cost, time saved, the capability and local content building your building in terms of talent development, training people to know and master the act of repairing the tools,' he said.

He noted that it will be difficult to quantify the cash Transcorp is saving in having the repair centre within its Afam plant premises.

He added that the cost of hiring a special vessel to ship the equipment outside the country for repairs, labour and other contingencies would give a little idea of how much is going to be saved by having the cleanroom for fixing locally.

According to him, the company in less than two years of operation has grown the operation from 48 megawatts to 188 megawatts, from its targeted 966 megawatts.