The Goldridge Caspian Pacific Power Nigeria has been established to exclusively provide electricity in an ecofriendly way to the un-served and under-served Nigerians. Caspian Pacific Power Nigeria business activities involve generating off grid captive electricity for Nigeria residents living around Alfa Bay/Ibeju Lekki, a suburb part of Lagos. Particularly, we focus on leveraging disruptive technologies and innovative business models in increasing electricity access especially in achieving the UN SDG 7 (universal access by 2030).
Admiralty homes is a real estate company situated at Igbo-Efon in Ibeju-Lekki local government area of Lagos state. They are among the largest real estate companies in Nigeria that deal majorly in building up of residential estates which are mostly serviced apartments and flats. They have developed different estates around the Lekki corridor with not less than 2,000 houses within their portfolio. With the rapid development and population growth in Lagos, houses have sprung up around the Alfa Bay Lekki which the national grid has been unable to cater for.
Against the background above, The Goldridge Caspian Pacific Power Ltd is developing a captive off grid natural gas fired power solution together with its distribution infrastructures to cater for the people identified above. The Goldridge Caspian Pacific Power is developing a 2.4MW Natural Gas Power Plant together with its transmission and distribution infrastructures in Alfa Bay area of Lekki
Admiralty homes is responsible for the provision of power supply to all their estates, this is from the national grid through agreements with the Eko electricity distribution company and the use of central mini diesel generators. With the rapid development and population growth in Lagos, houses have sprung up around the Alfa Bay Lekki which the national grid has been unable to cater for.
Caspian Pacific Power Nigeria has therefore developed power solutions for the following estates based on their energy requirements as set out in the table below.
The basic concept for power plant is to arrange equipment based on their individual function(s) as well as interaction with other dependent plant ancillaries. This is to facilitate ease of coordination / monitoring on one side and to ensure safe operation of the entire power plant on the other hand. The main equipment which is an electro-mechanical equipment shall be containerized and installed on a portion of the plant while its ancillaries that can be accommodated on top of the containerized equipment shall be so located. Other Balance of Plant (BOP) items like step-up or station transformers shall be arranged to ensure safe operation of the plant. A section of the land shall be used for downloading / receiving bay for the chosen fuel (LNG). All necessary equipment needed for the fuel system shall be located on this axis. The proposed site shall consist of an electrical room and administrative office which shall together form one storey building. Other important plant associated equipment like fire water tank, fire water pumps, fire water pipe reticulation network shall be located based on functionality, aesthetic and safety. Area to be covered and impacted by the proposed power plant is marked out in the plant in the next section below.
At the project location, a comfortable land footprint is earmarked for the project and shall be enough to accommodate all generation main equipment, balance of plant (BOP) and building. The equipment shall be arranged in such a way to face the nearby major access road. The layout has been divided into electromechanical section, fuel bay section, control room / admin building section, car park section and open space. The layout will accommodate the main equipment, balance of plant (BOP) and other plant ancillaries. Provision is made for LNG area with adequate consideration for easy manoeuvring of trucks within the power plant. The generators were arranged to allow for good ventilation as well as easy access for vehicular and personnel movement around the main equipment during top end or major overhaul maintenance. Electrical control room and administrative building shall be a one storey building.
For the purposed of future expansion, extra concrete plinths is provided to accommodate installation of new gas generators at each project location. Provision shall has also been made in the electrical panel for connection and integration of the generator if so installed in future.
The operation philosophy for the power station is determined by the available load profile during operation. During commissioning, all gas generators shall be integrated and synchronized to use any one generator or combination of more than one to meet the load demand.
The primary aim of this initial development is to install gas generators and get them synchronized as maintenance will be carried out at off-peak load periods such that at least one gas generator will be in operation to meet up the power demands of consumers and ensure that there is no downtime. For this purpose, gas generators shall be brought online to respond to load demand based on priority given to each generator as programmed during commissioning.
Operation of the proposed power plant is carried out by experienced technical personnel who will be trained up to OEM certification level for an operator. This will ensure that downtime is reduced to the barest minimum or totally eliminated where possible.
Operators are deployed in two or three shifts per day and each shift shall comprise of at least two technical operators (Mechanical & Electrical). These operators shall carry out day-to-day running of the plant, data gathering and plant monitoring. The plant operators shall also carry out preventive and scheduled maintenance as directed in the OEM manual. However, scheduled and shutdown maintenance that requires specialized skills and tools shall be carried out by OEM representative on a call-out basis.
Power evacuation is one of the integral parts of this project as it defines how power generated will get to the respective end users. Power distribution network serves as interface between the generation station on one hand and the metering system on the other hand. The custody transfer point shall serve as the battery limit for generation work and take-off for distribution. The battery limit for generation on this project shall be at the two (2) outgoing feeders in the 11kV or 11kv MV switchgear. 11kV network and all LV lines are to be constructed and installed in conformity with NEMSA regulations and standards. The Project is taking a holistic approach to see that
power is evacuated from generation station and distributed to the end users within a reasonable budget. Detailed distribution design shall ensure that energy loss during transmission is reduced to the barest minimum.
For distribution work, customers are categorized based on their physical location to form what is known as distribution layout. The market was divided into eleven (11) sections. Adequate consideration was given to each section to ensure that their energy demand is proportional to electrical distribution infrastructure planned to be deployed to each section.
Due to other consideration the proposed distribution route shall be fully underground. This is a system of distribution network where electric wires /cables, are buried underground while transformers and other distribution equipment are suspended on supports with the aid of square concrete.
Distribution topology being proposed for each of the project location is a Ring Network. A ring network is the preferred option because of its robustness and high reliability. In the ring network, distribution equipment is powered by more than one feeder. In this case if one of the two feeders is out due to fault or maintenance, the distribution network can still be energized from the other feeder connected to the network. In this way, the supply to the consumers is not disrupted. In addition to this, the ring main system is provided with section isolators at different strategic points along the network. If any fault occurs on any section of the ring, the section can easily be isolated by opening the associated section isolators on both sides of the faulty zone transformer directly which implies that when there is distribution failure / problem on a section, it can be fed from another section thereby guaranteeing power supply most of the times, hence the high reliability. The distribution topology to be adopted is an overhead system with 40-feet precast square concrete poles. The 11KV overhead distribution network will be constructed with pole-mounted 11/0.415kV Transformers with varying sizes based on the load profile and power demand of the area.
The underground distribution network has several advantages compared to the overhead technology, namely:
(i) It is less prone to wind and natural disasters as heavy winds pulls down overhead poles and also overhead line are more prone to thunder strikes.
(ii) It minimizes power theft as it is difficult to tap.
(iii) The underground cables are difficult to vandalize as it requires serious digging before this can be done.
The transformer capacities will range from a minimum of 100kVA to a maximum of 500kVA and 11/0.415kV Transformers are to be protected by panels which have been installed by adequately rated protective breakers. The entire 11kV Distribution network shall be protected at the 11KV Medium Voltage panels with the appropriate protective devices.
Substations on this project shall be Step-down substations and shall be for distribution only. Substation shall be constructed at strategic locations according to section or division of the community. This is to be able to produce usable voltage required by customers in the market and for operational flexibility. Substation for this project shall consist of the following:
i. Primary power lines which shall be at 11kV
ii. Secondary power line which shall be at 415V and 220V.
iii. Ground wire and strips for earthing of substation
iv. Step-down transformer for voltage conversion
v. Ring Master Unit (RMU)
vi. Low voltage Panel
vii. Security mesh fencing
viii. Lightning arrestor