Politically speaking, the national grid is a critical national asset and despite its inadequacies of technical insufficiency, obsolescence, the national grid traverses the entire country making it a humongous resource that is capable of acting as a necessary catalyst for the industrial growth of our nation and improving the lifestyle of Nigerians. This vast resource is being largely underutilized as the grid is made up of several nodes that can be tapped for the benefit of the Nigerian people.
One effective method of doing this is to embrace the phenomenon of turn-in-turn-out arrangement. Presently, there are limited usage of this arrangement and this piece is to highlight locations that can benefit from such arrangement.
A turn-in-turn-out arrangement/phenomenon exists when an intervening variable is introduced in-between an existing line for the purpose of connecting either a transmission substation or power station, for example introducing a point “C” in-between an existing line between points “A” and “B”. An analogy to this setup is the linkage of several communities to an existing highway through the connection of feeder roads to such highway.
On the Nigerian national grid, we have several such arrangements and they include the opening of the line between Benin and Ikeja West to accommodate the two power plants at Omotosho and opening two out of the three lines between Egbin and Ikeja West to connect the transmission substation at Oke-Aro.
Also, the opening of the third line between Jebba and Osogbo to connect the transmission station at Ganmo, a suburb of Ilorin and the dropping of the third line between Benin and Onitsha to energize the transmission station at Asaba.
The latest of such turn-in-turn-out arrangements is the opening of the existing dual lines between Jebba and Shiroro to provide an evacuation corridor for the newly-built 700MW Zungeru hydro power plant in Niger state.
The grid network can have more of such connections as a cost-saving arrangement and to make power readily available in areas where gaps exist presently. An example is Owerri, the capital of Imo state that is currently experiencing epileptic power supply as it is currently receiving supply via the dual 132KV Alaoji-Owerri lines when there exists a 330KV line between Onitsha and Alaoji that traverses Owerri and can be used to pick a substation at Owerri to feed the Imo state capital and environ. We hope Imo state government will mount pressure on the central government towards the realization of such arrangement without worrying about the contentious issue of right of way.
Even though there is an ongoing construction of another line to complement the existing 330KV line from Onitsha to Alaoji, the state government should know that the technical difficulty that would have made it difficult for this arrangement to be realized has been resolved with the construction of the alternate dual routes between Alaoji and Ikot Ekpene.
It is a low hanging fruit waiting to be plucked for the improvement of power supply to Owerri and environ!
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