By Abiola Olawale
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has granted MTN Communications Nigeria Ltd, Golden Penny Power Limited, and Havenhill Synergy, among others, permits for mini-grid electricity generation.
The NERC made this announcement in a report issued on Monday.
According to the report, the NERC has issued nine new off-grid generation licences in the first quarter of 2024 with a gross capacity of 109.69 megawatts and three new trading licences.
The electricity commission explained that the permits were issued after a thorough evaluation of their mini-grid applications.
A breakdown of the report revealed that MTN has been permitted to build four captive generation plants across Lagos State with 15.94MW capacity.
Golden Penny Power Limited, on the other hand, got a licence to build six off-grid gas plants in Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, and Cross River states. The total capacity is 100MW.
Part of the report reads: “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.
“Following the satisfactory evaluation of mini-grid applications, the commission issued three mini-grid permits and two registration certificates in 2024/Q1,” the NERC stated.
The New Diplomat reports that 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.
Under this arrangement, the commission said it has continued to encourage the development and utilisation of renewable energy by issuing permits and registration certificates for mini-grid development.
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.
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.
Others 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.
