TheCable

The Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) says it needs 1400MW to guarantee steady power supply for its 13 million customers.

Tayo Adekunle, spokesperson of the company, disclosed this in a media chat with journalists on Tuesday in Benin.

He said only 325.34MW has been supplied to the company to distribute to the customers in its area of coverage. This comprises 750,000 households and 13 million people in Edo, Delta, Ekiti and Ondo states.

Adekunle said BEDC had embarked on network expansion and provided or repaired faulty transformers ranging from 300KVA to 2.5KVA, in a bid to improve power supply.

“As I speak with you, we only get nine percent of what is generated as power from the generating company. As at Monday July 2, the BEDC got only 325.34MW from the 3614MW generated by GENCO.

“This is a far cry from the total of 1400MW needed to service our clients in the four states of Ondo, Ekiti, Edo and Delta that we cover.

“BEDC is only a retailer of electricity and not a generating outfit, and as such could only distribute what they get in form of power.

“BEDC is not isolated from the limitations within the industry, and we have been trying our best to provide safe and reliable electricity to our customers.”

Adekunle said the company introduced a load shedding system of three hours on and three hours off to satisfy its customers.

On the issue of metering, he said BEDC had achieved 65.30 percent progress in its area of coverage, leaving a metering gap of 34.7 percent.