For The Umpteenth Time, National Grid Collapses

The national grid has suffered another collapse, according to the official handle of the Nigeria National Grid on X.

The development comes after the grid collapsed three times in one week towards the end of last month.

This brings grid disturbance incidences to nine in 2024 alone.

“BREAKING: National Grid suffers another setback. Restoration soon!“, @NationalGridNg tweeted around 3 PM on Tuesday.

As of 2:45 PM, hourly generation readings from power generation companies such as Afam IV & V were 0 MW, Afam VI. 0 MW, Azura-EDO 0 MW, Dadinkowa. 0 MW, Delta 0 MW, Egbin 0 MW, Geregu 0 MW, Geregu-NIPP. 0 MW, Ibom-Power. 0 MW, Jebba 0 MW, Kainji 0 MW, Odukpani. 0 MW, Okpai. 0 MW, Olorunsogo. 0 MW, Olorunsogo-NIPP. 0 MW, Omoku. 0 MW, Omotosho. 0 MW, Paras 0 MW, Rivers IPP. 0 MW, and Shiroro. 0 MW.

The total megawatts was zero at the time of filing this report.

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) had yet to confirm the latest incident, leaving Nigerians in the dark as to the reason behind this round of blackouts.

On February 4, Nigeria experienced its first blackout of 2024 when the national grid collapsed at approximately 11:51 AM. The TCN-managed grid saw its capacity plummet from 2,407 megawatts to just 31MW by noon, and it completely shut down by 1 PM.

Grid Collapse Inevitable, Says Adelabu

The minister of power, Adebayo Adelabu last month said the grid collapses are almost inevitable in Nigeria given the deplorable state of the country’s power infrastructure.

The minister also said there is a need to have power grids in different regions or states to put an end to incessant grid collapses. Adelabu said this on Wednesday when he unveiled Hexing Livoltek, an electricity metre manufacturing company in the Lekki area of Lagos State.

According to him, having multiple power grids in each region and state would ensure stability. He noted that the decentralisation of the power sector would help the plan to build grids in each region, saying this was made possible by the Electricity Act signed by President Bola Tinubu in 2023.

“This Electricity Act has decentralised power. It has enabled all the subnational governments, the state government and the local government, to be able to participate in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity,” he said.

“We all rely on a single national grid today; if there is a disturbance of the national grid, it affects all 36 states. It shouldn’t be like that. This will enable us to start moving gradually towards having regional groups and possibly having state grids.

“And each of these grids will be removed and shielded from each other. So, if there’s a problem with a particular grid, only the state where it belongs will be affected, not the entire nation. So, this is one of the impacts this Electricity Act will have.”

Touching more on the grid collapse, he emphasised that the situation would be inevitable without sufficient investment in the sector.

Reps Vowed To Investigate Frequent Collapse
The latest development comes after the House of Representatives directed its Committee on Power to investigate the frequent national grid collapses and report back to it.

This decision followed a motion of urgent national importance raised by Hon. Mansur Manu Soro (Bauchi, PDP) during a recent plenary session.

In his motion, Hon. Soro expressed deep concern over the persistent grid failures, which have plunged the entire country into blackout, worsening the economic challenges already faced by Nigerians.

He stressed that a stable power supply is essential for driving economic growth and development in any nation.
(Channel TV)