FG, Siemens Sign Agreement to Generate 11,000MW by 2023

President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday witnessed the signing of Electricity Road Map agreement between the Federal Government of Nigeria and Germany-based company, Siemens at the State House, Abuja.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the agreement is the outcome of a meeting Buhari held with German Chancellor, Angela Merkel on August 31, 2018.

The Letter of Agreement was signed on behalf of the Federal Government by the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises,, Mr Alex Okoh, and the Global Chief Executive Officer of Siemens, Joe Kaeser.

Speaking shortly after signing of the agreement, Buhari tasked Siemens and other stakeholders in the power sector to work hard to achieve 7,000 megawatts of reliable power supply by 2021, and 11,000 megawatts by 2023.

“We all know how critical electricity is to the development of any community or indeed any nation.

“And in Nigeria, we are blessed to have significant natural gas, hydro and solar resources for power generation.

“We are still on the journey to achieving reliable, affordable and quality electricity supply necessary for economic growth, industrialisation and poverty alleviation,” he said.

According to him, our goal is simply to deliver electricity to Nigerian businesses and homes.

“My challenge to Siemens, our partner investors in the Distribution Companies, the Transmission Company of Nigeria and the Electricity Regulator is to work hard to achieve 7,000 megawatts of reliable power supply by 2021 and 11,000 megawatts by 2023 in phases 1 and 2 respectively.

“After these transmission and distribution system bottlenecks have been fixed, we will seek in the third and final phase to drive generation capacity and overall grid capacity to 25,000 megawatts,’’ he said.

The president expressed the hope that with the Federal Government’s strong commitment to the development of Mambilla Hydroelectric and the various solar projects under development across the country, the long-term power generation capacity would ensure adequate energy mix.

Buhari stressed that the agreement would be structured strictly under a government to government framework, adding that no middlemen would be involved in order to achieve its goals.

“Our intention is to ensure that our cooperation is structured under a Government-to-Government framework. No middlemen will be involved so that we can achieve value for money for Nigerians.

“We also insist that all products be manufactured to high quality German and European standards and competitively priced.’’

The Chief Executive Officer of Siemens, Mr Joe Kaeser said the signing of the agreement was a milestone in the relationship between Nigeria and Germany.

“The journey to this landmark started in August 2018 when the German Chancellor and the Nigerian President met to talk about the opportunities on how to strengthen our populations.

“The two leaders said energy was top on their agendas of what they discussed and clearly without affordable, reliable and sustainable energy in supply, Nigeria cannot be able to achieve sustainable economic development.

“With this agreement and the support of the German government, Nigeria is stepping up to meet this challenge,” he said.

 FROM NAN ng.com