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Tayo Busayo, Abuja
DAILY COURIER – The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has issued permits to Golden Penny Power Limited, MTN Communications Nigeria Limited, Havenhill Synergy, and other companies for mini-grid electricity generation.
The off-grid generation licences with a gross capacity of 109.69 megawatts and three new trading licences, were issued in the first quarter of 2024.
NERC said Golden Penny Power Limited got a licence to build six off-grid gas plants with total capacity of 100MW in four states including Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, and Cross River.
Also, MTN was granted a permit to build four captive generation plants across Lagos State with 15.94MW capacity.
A statement by NERC informed that “other licenced companies who are beneficiaries for mini-grids are Daybreak Power Solutions, TIS Renewable Energy Limited, Auro Nigeria Private Limited, Watts Exchange Limited, Centum Dopemu Energy Services Ltd, DMD Electric Limited Lagos State.
“Section 165(1)(m) of the Electricity Act 2023 permits the commission to award licence of mini-grid concessions to renewable energy companies to exclusively serve a specific geographical location indicating aggregate electricity to be generated and distributed from a site with the obligation to serve customers to request service.”
“SweetCo Foods Limited, African Steel Mills Nigeria Limited, West African Ceramics Limited, Royal Engineered Stones Limited, and Armilo Plastics Limited were permitted to generate captive power.
“Captive power generation permits are issued to entities that aim to own and maintain power plants for generating power for consumption and not for sale to a third party. The commission issued nine captive power generation permits in 2024/Q1 with a total nameplate capacity of 52.57MW..
“A permit is issued to a mini-grid developer for the construction, operation, maintenance, and where applicable ownership of mini-grids with distribution capacity above 100 kilowatts and generation capacity up to 1MW.
“A Meter Asset Provider is an entity that is granted a permit by the commission to provide metering services with roles that may include meter financing, procurement, supply, installation, maintenance, and replacement.
“The certified meter service providers are Genobet Limited (installer), Mojec Meter Asset Management (installer), Epagad International Services Limited (installer), Abdulrahman Ahmadu Zubairu (installer), Smart Meters Company Limited (manufacturer), and Crestflow Energy Limited (manufacturer)”.
The commission also said it issued one regulation and 36 new Orders in 2024/Q1. They include NERC–R–001–2024 — Eligible Customer Regulations, 2024; NERC/2023/023—NERC/2023/033 — Multi-Year Tariff Order 2024 for the Distribution Companies; and NERC/2023/034 — MYTO 2024 for the Transmission Company of Nigeria Plc.
Other are NERC/2023/035 — Order on Performance Improvement Plan of the Transmission Company of Nigeria; NERC/2024/001 — Order on the Regulatory Intervention in Kaduna Electricity Distribution Plc; NERC/2024/004 – NERC/2024/014 — Order on Noncompliance with Capping of Estimated Bill by DisCos for the period January – September 2023; and NERC/2024/016 – NERC/2024/036 — February 2024 Supplementary Order to the Multi-Year Tariff Order for the Discos.
