From Paul Osuyi, Asaba
Operators of the 8.5 megawatts Asaba Independent Power Plant (IPP) on Thursday assured residents that the facility would not cause environmental pollution that would be detrimental to their health.
The facility, which was recently commissioned by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, was built by a private company, Bastanchury Power Solutions, with the Delta State Government as its sole client.
But some residents are apprehensive that the facility would be a source of pollution that might compromise their health, with speculations in some areas that there was no Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report for the project.
However, the chairman of the company, Mr Goziem Chidi, allayed the fears of residents and insisted that there was an EIA report not from the national issuing agency but by the local agency because of the generating capacity of the IPP was less than 10 megawatts.
“We abided by all the regulations including acquiring the state EIA report rather than the federal EIA report because it is below 10 megawatts.
“If it is above, then we must transmit it to the federal system. This is a local embedded power, and at that capacity, we don’t need the federal EIA report.
“This gas power plant is generating 8.5 megawatts with zero smoke emission.
“As a matter of fact, this is what is recommended by World Health Organization (WHO) right now because it is not harmful to people and also friendly to the environment. It’s a healthier and cleaner power system than diesel,” he said.
According to him, the Asaba IPP remained a private investment without any financial input from the state government, adding that the state government guaranteed ib initio that it will buy the generated power for its facilities.
“It is a completely private investment, we went to the source for funds to execute this, although the state government was very supportive.
“But there was no financial input from the state government, what we got from them was a power purchase agreement,” he added.