After years of inactivity, the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) on Friday signed off a power purchase agreement (PPA) to reactivate work on the 40 megawatts (MW) Dadin Kowa small hydro power plant and get it completed.
The PPA which was signed by both NBET and Mabon Power Limited – the project development consultant, would accelerate the plant’s completion and add up to 40MW to Nigeria’s power grid.
Situated in Yamaltu Deba local council some 37 kilometres from Gombe town in Gombe state, the dam was designed to have a water reservoir capacity of 2.8 billion cubic meters, from which electricity could be harvested and 44,000 hectares of farmland irrigated for food production.
The dam would also provide up to 19 million gallons of potable water daily to the capital of the state, but works on it has stalled for a long time now.
Its procurement and development had been erratic and frequently derailed by changes in government’s policy, In August 2001, the federal government disclosed that it had budgeted to spend $32 million to complete the hydro power facility, and in March 2007, announced its approval of N4.46 billion for this purpose, however, works still did not continue on the project whose civil work was commissioned in 1988.
But signing off the PPA to advance its completion, the government said it was in line with its drive on incremental, stable and uninterrupted power supply in the country.
The Managing Director of NBET, Dr. Marilyn Amobi, stated in this regards that the PPA would accelerate the completion of the project, while Mr. Christopher Cyril, who spoke for Mabon Power Limited, said the project had reached 80 per cent completion, and would leverage the PPA to complete it.
