Enugu State Government has commenced construction of three new 33KV feeders targeting more than 20 hours of daily power supply across four LGAs.
The Enugu State Government has commenced the construction of three new 33KV electricity feeders aimed at delivering improved, affordable and more reliable power supply to communities across four Local Government Areas of the state.
The project, being developed from the Ugwuaji Transmission Station, will serve communities in Nkanu East, Nkanu West, Aninri and Awgu Local Government Areas.
The initiative was unveiled on Saturday following a stakeholders’ meeting on electricity held at the International Conference Centre, Enugu.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Enugu State Electrification Agency (ESEA), Mr Christopher Ezeoha, said the project was designed to address longstanding electricity challenges in the affected communities.
According to Ezeoha, Nkanu East and Nkanu West have been particularly underserved because a single feeder currently supplies an excessively large area.
He explained that the Amechi 33KV feeder serves eight Local Government Areas, including five in Enugu State and three in Ebonyi State, across a distance of more than 640 kilometres.
The extensive length of the feeder, he said, makes fault detection and repairs difficult, often resulting in prolonged power outages.
Ezeoha disclosed that some communities, including Nkerifi, Nara and Mburubu, had been without electricity for more than 20 years.
He said the state government had directed the agency to restore electricity to the affected communities but recognised that simply repairing the existing feeder would not provide a lasting solution.
“Government has therefore decided to break the long feeder into shorter sections by constructing about three new feeders of roughly 200 kilometres or less each.
“Injection substations will also be installed to transform electricity from 33KV to 11KV, thereby improving the reliability of supply to communities,” he said.
Ezeoha said the government expected the project to provide an average of more than 20 hours of electricity daily to the affected communities upon completion.
He added that the intervention would eventually be extended to other parts of the state, including Nsukka and Uzo-Uwani.
The ESEA chief executive also disclosed that the state was preparing its electricity distribution infrastructure to evacuate power from a proposed 630-megawatt generation facility being developed in Enugu.
He said the long-term objective of the state government was to achieve reliable electricity supply for 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
To improve accountability and fault management, Ezeoha said the government planned to deploy smart prepaid meters and automation technology across the electricity distribution network.
He explained that a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system would enable the agency to identify the location of faults almost immediately, allowing technical teams to respond directly to affected points rather than searching across hundreds of kilometres of transmission lines.
Ezeoha appealed to residents and host communities to protect electrical infrastructure against vandalism, stressing that the success of the investment depended on collective ownership and protection of the facilities.
Also speaking, the General Manager of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Enugu, Dr Tom Inugonum, commended the state government for its efforts to improve electricity supply.
Inugonum said the TCN Enugu region controls transmission infrastructure covering between six and eight states, adding that stronger collaboration with the Enugu State Government would help address the state’s electricity challenges.
He noted that Enugu receives electricity from three major sources and has several transmission lines serving different parts of the state.
However, he said some transmission and substation projects in the region remained incomplete, limiting the overall capacity of the power system.
Inugonum also raised concerns over the vandalism of transmission infrastructure, warning that substantial investments in substations and other critical facilities could be lost if the infrastructure was not adequately protected.
The State Commissioner for Energy, Mr Enyinna Ogbonna, described electricity as one of the major priorities of the administration of Gov. Peter Mbah.
Ogbonna said reliable electricity was critical to driving economic growth and achieving the administration’s target of increasing Enugu State’s Gross Domestic Product from about $4.4 billion to $30 billion.
In his remarks, the President-General of Isi-Amagunze, Mr Okey Nwatu, called for stronger community participation in protecting electricity infrastructure.
Nwatu said transformers, cables, switches and other electrical facilities were critical infrastructure that communities must safeguard to ensure sustained electricity supply.
The three new 33KV feeders are therefore expected to reduce the burden on existing transmission infrastructure, shorten fault-response times and improve electricity reliability across the benefiting communities.
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