Nigeria’s first grid connected solar power generation plant is completed and ready to feed the excess of its 1.2mw peak generation capacity to the national grid, OGN has learnt.
Sited at the Lower Usuma Dam Water Treatment Plant in Bwari area of Abuja, outstanding works on the solar plant which was built by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) was completed and commissioned on Tuesday by Nigeria’s power minister, Mr. Babatunde Fashola.
According to sources, it will power the water treatment plant which Abuja relies on for all its municipal water supplies, and subsequently feed its excess generation to the local Abuja electricity distribution company for further distribution to its customers.
Although Fashola had earlier hinted on the completion of the plant, he was however represented at the commissioning of the plant by the ministry’s director of renewable and rural access, Mr. Abayomi Adebisi.
Following successful tests on the installed solar system, the first phase of the project with peak generation capacity of 975kw was commissioned in August 2016, while the second phase of an additional 207kw peak generation was commissioned on Tuesday.
OGN also gathered that the peak power demand of the water plant was quite minimal, and that a good amount of the power plant’s excess capacity would be given to Abuja Disco which supplied the water plant its electricity before the $9.7 million solar plant was built by the government of Japan through JICA.
