NIGERIA ELECTRICITY CHALLANGES: HOW NATIONAL GRID COLLAPSED POSE A PROBLEM

The national grid collapsed again on Tuesday, September 19, 2023, with power generation dropping from a peak of 3,594.60 megawatts (MW)  to  42.7MW at midday.

This is as the minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, on Tuesday, vowed, on behalf of the federal government, to achieve 20,000 megawatts of power generation in the next three years.

Only the Delta Power plant was active on the grid at noon, with 41MW, while Afam had 1.7MW.

At 11:32 a.m., all of the commercial hubs of Lagos lost power supply from the grid. It is now blamed for a national system collapse, according to Ikeja Electric.

However, as of 9.00 p.m. yesterday, the grid had recovered to as much as 2,598.90 megawatts generated by 15 generation companies.

This comes barely five days after the grid collapsed twice within a space of more than 12 hours leaving the nation in total darkness

The collapse of the national grid has resulted in a nationwide blackout, with many Nigerians without electricity.

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has not yet released a statement on the cause of the collapse. Still, it is likely due to inadequate infrastructure, gas supply problems, and transmission system constraints.

Although the nation is still struggling to sustain a 4,000MW electricity generation, Adelabu insisted that President Bola Tinubu’s administration will meet the 20,000MW target by 2026.

Adelabu, who spoke at this year’s Nigeria Energy Summit in Lagos, said he had diagnosed the issues to a large extent and found out that the solutions were not as difficult as people believe.

He said: “As a politician, a Minister of Power, I also have a limited amount of time to spend, and I must make an impact. I am determined to make an impact. I have diagnosed the issues to a large extent, and I’ve found out that the solutions are not as difficult as we all believe.

“In setting targets for ourselves, we also need to set short-term targets. My vision is for us to increase the stored capacity of our generation to at least 20,000 megawatts in the next three years. And it doesn’t stop there.

“We should be able to evacuate and transport this power at the minimum of 80 percent of the stored capacity to the end users of the exchange system.”

SOURCE: Punch