Nigeria’s epileptic power supply Monday worsened as the national grid suffered yet another collapse, plunging many homes into further darkness.
Affected by the system collapse are Lagos, Enugu, Kaduna, Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo states among several others.
Before now, there had been a drastic drop in the supply of electricity to various homes and businesses across the country.
The grid, which is being managed by the government-owned Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), has continued to suffer system collapse over the years amid a lack of spinning reserve meant to forestall such occurrences.
Taking to its social media handle Monday to announce the collapse, Eko Electricity Distribution Plc, one of the nation’s distribution companies, disclosed that the grid collapsed at 10:40am Monday.
It wrote on its Twitter handle: “Dear esteemed customer, we regret to inform you of a total system collapse on the national grid at 10:40 am today, leading to outages across our network. We are closely monitoring the situation with our TCN partners to determine the cause and a timeline for resolution.
“We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience as we will keep you updated on the situation, Thank you for your understanding.”
Another DisCo, Jos Electricity Distribution Plc, also announced on its Twitter handle to its customers: “There is power outage in all our franchise states due to system collapse nationwide.
“We will provide an update shortly. Thank you for bearing with us.”
The situation was not different in Enugu Electricity Distribution Plc, which, via its twitter handle, confirmed the collapse.
EEDC Head Corporate Communications Emeka Ezeh said they were waiting for feedback.
“The Enugu Electricity Distribution Plc (EEDC) wishes to inform her esteemed customers in the South East of a general system collapse which occurred this morning, Monday, 14th March, 2022 at 10:40 am.
“This is the reason for the loss of supply currently being experienced across the network. Consequently, all our outgoing feeders are out and supply to our customers in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States are affected by this development.”
“We are on standby and awaiting a signal from the National Control Centre (NCC) for restoration of supply,” the statement said.
Also, the Kaduna Electricity confirmed the system collapse, but assured its customers that power would soon be restored.
“We regret to inform you that the power outage being experienced in our franchise states is due to System Collapse of the National Grid which occurred at about 10:40 am,” the firm said.
“Power supply shall be restored as soon as the National Grid is powered back. Our sincere apologies for any inconvenience,” the text message read.
Blame game
Meanwhile, Executive Secretary Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC) Dr. Joy Ogaji has blamed the general system collapse on the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET).
Ogaji said this was so because NBET refused to fulfil its obligations to the GenCos as contained in the Power Purchase Agreements (PPA).
In a detailed breakdown, the APGC said NBET owed the GenCos N214.93 billion in 2015; N273.32 billion in 2016; N236.47 in 2017, N264.08 billion in 2018, and N256.97 billion, N266.01 billion and N120.25 billion in 2019,2020 and 2021 respectively.
Consequently, Ogaji said the humongous debt had hampered the ability of the GenCos to function optimally regarding maintenance and power distribution, while clarifying that if the debts were paid, the GenCos could generate 9,000MW immediately.
But Head Corporate Communication NBET Henrietta Ighomrore explained that only five power generation companies with active Gas Purchase Agreement were paid for unused capacity.
According to her, claims by Ogaji that the GenCos had the capacity to generate 9,000MW were not accurate as inspections by NBET showed the capacity never existed.
Minister meets GenCos, others
And in a quick response to the development, Minister of Power Abubakar Aliyu summoned an emergency meeting with stakeholders in the power sector.
At the meeting, the minister said there was the need for stakeholders to work together to address the deteriorating power situation across the country.
The meeting had in attendance officials of GenCos, DisCos, TCN and NBET. Others are the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Shell and others in the power value chain.
“This meeting was summoned to address the current electricity situation in the country which we are not happy about.
“We must find a solution so that Nigerians will have electricity. I want us to have the patience to talk to each other, not blame each other,” Aliyu said.
The minister pledged government’s readiness to ensure power stability across Nigeria.
