New feeder being constructed in Wuse, to improve reliability of power supply in Wuse, says AEDC….. Metered 70,000 customers in 2025…..seeks assets protection 

By Onu Okorie 

The current epileptic power supply in Abuja and other franchise areas of Abuja Electricity Distribution Company AEDC would be a thing of the past soon, if the plans outlined by the Company’s Management to remedy poor power supply is anything to go by. 

Speaking during a media parley in Abuja yesterday, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Engr, Chijioke Okwuokenye disclosed that a number of projects has been initiated by the company that would ensure nothing less than 20 hour power supply for the customers, which includes a dedicated new feeder being constructed in Wuse, to improve the reliability of power supply in Wuse, which would be completed by the second week of March 2026.

According to him, “By the second week of March, we can assure customers in Wuse that they will be experiencing nothing less than 20 hours of supply uninterrupted. Because we are creating redundancy, bringing in new feeders and ensuring that even when there are faults and outages, we can do back feeding through our redundant network.”

“We are also doing a dedicated feeder to IDU as we speak. We have a plan which the regulator is even currently reviewing and is going to sanction, that is going to ensure uninterrupted power supply to the industrial area of IDU. So, the idea is to create clusters of positive impact, which will create the confidence both in investors and in customers that AEDC is able to deliver on our promise. And start replicating these clusters of positive impact across our entire franchise area.  

“I have spoken about a few things we are doing in Abuja, but this is not just restricted to Abuja. In Kogi, Niger, Nasarawa, we are trying to replicate the same solutions. The idea is to position AEDC as the best DisCo in West Africa. It might sound like a tall order, but the fact is that it is possible. We have the support of our shareholders, we have the support of our regulators, we have the support of the government to get this to happen.”

Engr Okwuokenye also said that the Company is planning to implement embedded generation scheme, in partnership with the Rural Electrification Agency REA to have interconnected mini grids where people are able to build solar plants and interconnect them to the company’s network and serve uninterrupted power supply to their clusters. “With the embedded generation, we have a plan to build about three 10-megawatt solar plants, expanded to 20 depending on how the demand grows,” he said. 

He assured residents of Lokogoma and Karu areas that efforts are on ground to  address the  constant blackout recorded in the area due to its uniqueness and they would start enjoying uninterrupted power supply soon. 

He expressed confidence that with the coming on board next year of the Gwagwalada Independent Power Project GIPP by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited NNPC Ltd, and the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano AKK gas pipeline project, Abuja and its environs, would be massively relieved of energy cuts. He revealed that the AEDC  is discussing with the NNPC management on how to offtake that power and improve service delivery to Abuja. The Gwagwalada IPP is among the NNPC flagship power projects along the AKK corridor. It is part of the 3,600MW cumulative power capacity which includes Kaduna IPP 900MW and Kano IPP 1,350MW.  

Speaking on the achievements after taking over the management of AEDC, he explained that about 70,000 customers were metered in 2025, deployed under the Meter Acquisition Fund MAF and Distribution Sector Recovery Programme DISREP, which has reduced its Aggregate Technical, Commercial and Collection losses ATC&C Losses from 42% to 32% in one year. 

“These are real customers that have been moved from estimated billing to credible billing by improving customer satisfaction, improving customer confidence and also improving the liquidity in the market,“ he argued.

Okwuokenye said the company has also made some tremendous progress in terms of investments, and service delivery to customers. Noting that last year, the company increased its energy intake by almost 15% from what it did the previous year.

The other areas of improved performance the AEDC boss disclosed to the journalists is that the Company is now meeting 100 per cent of its payment obligations to the electricity market. Which he said was a major turnaround in its financial and operational performance.

He said “AEDC has moved away from a past era of accumulating market debts and is now fully liquid in its dealings within the power value chain. Before now, our company was known for owing significant debts to the market because we were unable to meet our payment obligations. That is no longer the case. Today, we are meeting 100 per cent of our obligations and paying down legacy debts,” While he acknowledged that there are still loopholes in the sector, especially with regards to the low power allocation available for distribution, due largely to dry season and gas constraints, the MD assured that supply would soon normalise.  

On his part, AEDC Chief Technical Officer CTO, Engr. Godfrey Abba, said the management has been working around the clock to continuously improve the company’s network and infrastructure. Explaining that the company actually inherited a network that was under very serious decay. “If you look at Abuja, the city center, majorly underground. Ordinarily one would think that because it’s underground, you have a very perfect network. But if you look deep into it and you diagnose and do some analysis, you see why we have a lot of issues. We don’t have cable trenches in the city center. “The cables, the holes are dug and cables are just laid. So if I have a fault on an 11 kV cable, for instance, it will take time to detect the fault. Of course, we have machines that we use to detect such faults. “It will take time to expose the cable. Sometimes you see buildings coming on top of where the cables have already been laid. You need to expose and before you carry out repair work to service the area again. “That has been a major constraint for us. Those cables, we are making arrangements to replace them. As not to create that downtime and that number of hours that the customers will be out,” he said.  Speaking also during the parley, the AEDC chief Operating Officer, Engr. Blessing OGbe highlighted different challenges that is inhibiting operations of the Company. Some of them are  energy theft, vandalism and lack of payment of bills. He however, appealed to the public to demonstrate patriotism in protecting the assets of the company as the preservation of the assets would enable the Company to serve the customers better. According to him, “these challenges are impacting negatively on the electricity market as the revenues that should accrue to the value chain are often lost.” On the current epileptic supply to customers, Engr. Ogbe explained that the 15% load allocation to the company from the total energy generated is grossly inadequate. “Saying for a period now, the energy available had not been as it used to be.  And we can’t give all we don’t have,” he stated.