Three northern Nigerian states—Kano, Katsina, and Jigawa—may soon have access to a 24-hour electricity supply.
According to report, the potential arises as the new core investors of Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO) get ready to launch an ambitious plan to add up to 200MW of capacity through 100 mini-grids and embedded generation.
The company’s board chairman, Adamu Ibrahim Gumel, stated in a statement that interconnected mini-grids will soon be established throughout the company’s network in the states of Jigawa, Katsina, and Kano during a visit to a mini-grid site in the Zawaciki area of Kumbotso LGA in Kano State.
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As to his statement, the initiative’s goal is to improve the availability of electricity to its valued clients, with a particular focus on providing industrial clients with bulk grid electricity.
The KEDCO chairman also added, “We are equally looking at some of our key industrial clusters such as Tokarawa and Sharada for 24-hour supply through embedded generation in line with our vision to enable re-industrialisation and economic empowerment of Kano and environs through improving the reliability and quality of power supply.”
According to Naija News, the World Bank, KEDCO’s Core Investor Consortium, the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, and the Nigerian Electrification Project in partnership with the Rural Electrification Agency worked together to establish the Zawaciki power plant, which was a pioneer among many others.
Gumel states that the $2 million Interconnected mini-grid is the biggest of its kind in Nigeria and includes a 1 MW hybrid solar-diesel plant, low voltage network maintenance and enhancements, and metering for more than 2000 users.
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Habib Daura, a director on the board of KEDCO and a representative of the new Core Investor Future Energies Africa, also spoke at the location, saying, “We are in serious conversations with the institutional investors and the Governments of Kano, Katsina and Jigawa to re-capitalise and re-position this entity to be the best performing DISCO in the country.”
The recently designated core investors have pledged to turn Kano DISCO into Africa’s first “green DISCO.” Energy Storage Systems (ESS), mini-grids, embedded solar hybrid power plants, and power purchase agreements with generators that use clean energy sources, such neighbouring hydroelectric units, will all be used to achieve this.
On behalf of developer Bagaja Renewables, EMOne organised a consortium that worked with Diginet and Digitbit to construct the Zawaciki power plant. KEDCO has declared its plan to build more mini-grids, collaborating with a consortium of EPCs and developers headed by the same firm that successfully completed the Zawaciki project.
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This calculated action intends to accelerate the execution of the plan to build 100 interconnected mini-grids within an accelerated timeframe.
The development has the Zawaciki community ecstatic. The imam of Zawaciki Mosque stated, “We should pray for the success of this development, I have never experienced this much constant and uninterrupted power supply,” during a recent Friday sermon. He spoke in Hausa.
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