The Federal Government has assured Nigerians that they will start enjoying power supply for 18 hours as from 2014.
The Minister of State for Power, Alhaja Ibrahim Kuchi, stated this while speaking with reporters at the headquarters of the Peoples Democratic Party in Abuja on Wednesday.
She also assured that power generation in the country would peak at 10,000 megawatts by the end of December 2014.
The minister said the increase in power generation would translate into between 17 and 18 hours of power supply in the country.
The minister in company with the Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, were at the party’s secretariat to brief its leadership on the activities of their ministry in the last one year.
Nebo directed the minister of state to answer most of the questions by journalists after their interaction with the members of the National Working Committee of the party.
She said, “In 2014, we envisage 10,000 mega watts. God willing, with our short term, long term and immediate strategies that we have in the ministry working assiduously with all the other stakeholders in the power sector, we envisaged we would make it.
“With all the other NIPP work going on and the Niger Delta Power Company coming up and to be commissioned by December 2013, we look forward to 10,000 megawatts come December 2014.
“And this is what we are working towards; if we succeed making it more than that we are very happy people. But we are focused on actually delivering 10,000 megawatts by 2014.
“And this, by our calculations and data we have on ground, will give at least between 17 and 18 hours of power supply to Nigerians. The 24 hours power supply will happen and we are working steadily towards that.”
Asked if the government was considering solar energy to generate power for the country, she said government had not ruled its possibility out.
However, she added that the cost could be capital intensive and that because of this, government was concentrating on the regular source of power for now.
The minister said, “Solar is capital intensive. It needs a lot of planning and policies and a lot of homework to be done before we unveil it.
“We are working assiduously. We have a road map. What we are about doing in 2013 is the energy mix that we require to take our power supply and deliverance to another level. We see solar energy, just like you see it, as something that would deliver to us in the rural communities.
“It would give us light in the rural communities and remote areas where the grid is not there. We see it as a solution to a lot of issues in term of rural electrocution. It is one of the re-newables we are pursuing and before the end of the day you will see a lot of it happening.”