The national electricity grid has collapsed again today, October 19, the third time in a week.
The grid collapsed in the early hours of today, throwing most parts of Nigeria into total blackouts.
Data obtained from the Nigerian System Operator’s portal (niggrid.org), showed that the grid recorded an unprecedented zero Megawatts (MW) as of 8:16 am today. The data showed also that all 22 generation companies (GenCos) are down as at the time of this report.
This collapse marks the eighth grid disturbance in 2024, adding to challenges that have long plagued Nigeria’s power sector.
Despite the extensive effects of the blackout, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) is yet to confirm the incident as at the time of this report, leaving the public and key stakeholders without information on the cause or resolution of the latest crisis.
The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu had said last week that the grid collapses were almost inevitable in Nigeria given the deplorable state of the country’s power infrastructure.
According to him, having multiple power grids in each region and state would ensure stability.
He said that the decentralisation of the power sector would help the plan to build grids in each region, saying that 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. 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.”
Source: The Eagle Online.
