SoThe Niger Delta Power Holding Company has announced plans to resume operations at the Alaoji Power Plant by August 2025, nearly two years after it went offline.

The move is part of a broader strategy to revive dormant power generation assets and boost electricity supply to the national grid.

Managing Director of NDPHC, Jennifer Adighije, disclosed this during a strategic visit to the headquarters of the Nigerian Independent System Operator in Abuja on Thursday. The engagement aimed to deepen collaboration with the newly restructured grid operator following the unbundling of the Transmission Company of Nigeria.

Adighije also revealed that an additional unit at the Omotosho power plant is expected to come online by the end of July, reinforcing NDPHC’s commitment to enhancing generation capacity amid persistent shortfalls.

 

Recent data from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission highlights the underperformance of power plants managed by the NDPHC. Despite an installed capacity exceeding 4,000 megawatts, actual generation remains below 1,000MW. Notably, the 500MW Alaoji 1 plant has produced no electricity for months, while the Ihovbor 2 plant stands out for operating at 97% of its capacity.

The planned reactivation of Alaoji marks a key step in NDPHC’s efforts to close the gap between installed capacity and actual output, amid growing pressure to improve Nigeria’s power sector performance.

Adighije “My vision was anchored on optimisation. The optimisation and performance of our power plants, and that optimisation generally is around optimising our operations and then optimising the commercialisation of our stranded capacity, so optimisation is commercially and technically. So we paid a lot of attention to improving our availability. So I know that every power plant is primarily judged by its plant availability.

“And so when we came on board, we came up with a robust recovery strategy for improving our availability, and I can tell you that in nine months. We have improved our availability by 100 per cent or more, and we are still working to recover one additional unit in Omotosho that will come up by the end of this month and hopefully in the month of August, the Alaoji power plant which has been offline for about two years is also expected to come up to the grid in the month of August.”

She reaffirmed NDPHC’s commitment to supporting the national grid and maximising the utilisation of its over 5,000 megawatts of installed capacity across 10 power plants. She, however, emphasised the need for stronger collaboration with NISO, especially in the areas of grid access, equitable dispatch, and enhanced operational flexibility.

“We understand NISO’s quasi-regulatory role, but it’s important to note that as a government-owned generation company, our operational realities differ from private GENCOs,” Adighije explained. “We operate under stringent public procurement laws, which can affect our speed of execution. We appeal for regulatory consideration in areas where applicable.”

She also underscored NDPHC’s significant contributions across the power value chain, citing major investments in transmission infrastructure. We’ve executed over 50 330kV transmission substations and more than 25 132kV substations, adding over 9,000MVA in transformer capacity. This makes NDPHC the largest contributor to Nigeria’s power infrastructure development,” she noted.

In response, the Managing Director of NISO, Abdul Bello Mohammed, expressed the operator’s commitment to working closely with NDPHC to optimise power generation, improve dispatch coordination, and enhance frequency control across the grid.

“I must commend the strides you’ve made. NDPHC is by far the largest utility in the country, and if we can fully optimise your 5,000MW capacity, Nigeria will be better for it,” Mohammed said.

“You have a minimum available capacity of 2,000MW, yet what we’re dispatching from your plants ranges between 500 and 800MW. That’s not good enough. Deliberate efforts must be made to bridge this gap,” he said.

Mohammed also highlighted the importance of fast-tracking Nigeria’s integration with the West African Power Pool markets, noting that surplus capacity from NDPHC plants could be exported to neighbouring countries to generate additional revenue and improve asset utilisation.