October 04, (THEWILL) – The management of Ikeja Electric on Monday announced that some consumers under its operations in some parts of Lagos State will experience power outage over the next eight weeks,
The power outage, which will run from 8am to 6 pm daily, begins on October 11.
The Chief Technical Officer, Ikeja Electric (IE), Jide Kumapayi, who made this known in Lagos, explained that the reason is to enable the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to carry out an upgrade to the 132KVA conductors from Ogba to Ikeja.
Kumapayi said the project, which would begin on October 11, was aimed at increasing the capacity of the transmission lines to generate more power from the generation companies.
He noted that some of the 132K lines installed over 50 years ago had become obsolete and degraded due to time and usage.
According to him, areas that will be affected by this stage of the project include Oregun, Police Training College, Oba Akran, Oke Ira, Ogba, Magodo , Anifowoshe and Omole Phase One.
Kumapayi said, “The TCN is currently embarking on the upgrade of the 132KV lines from Ikeja West to Ota and Alimosho in stages. This is the second stage.
“The TCN is replacing all the aluminum conductors with gap conductors which are more sophisticated to withstand heat and have more capacity to carry current.
“The implication of this is that from 8a.m. to 6pm. everyday, the substations controlling these areas will be switched off, which will affect the feeders connected to them.
“This will affect all categories of customers within the area, especially our Maximum Demand (MD) customers such as Ikeja City Mall, Police College, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital and the Ikeja High Court.”
He added that the TCN would also move to the Alimosho and Agege axis during the next stage.
Kumapayi noted that the upgrade was a power sector initiative to boost transmission and distribution of electricity to Nigerians.
Also, the Head, Corporate Communications, Ikeja Electric, Felix Ofulue, said the DisCo had written to the MD customers notifying them of the situation.
Ofulue said the company was also meeting with its bilateral power supply agreement partners and appealed to all those affected to exercise patience with the DisCo during the period.
“Even though this is a TCN project, it is our duty to inform our customers of the situation because we are the ones that interface with them on a daily basis.
“We believe it will be for the benefit of our customers at the end of the day and will also allow Ikeja Electric to invest more in our system to improve power supply to customers under our network”, Ofulue said
