New Telegraph

Grid collapse plunges Nigeria into darkness

Nigeria was yesterday rocked by a nationwide blackout as Electricity System, also known as the power grid, suffered the second collapse in two weeks. The last collapse happened on Friday, November 13.

 

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which confirmed the total collapse of the system, stated that multiple trippings led to the collapse of the system. General Manager, Public Affairs, TCN, Ndidi Mbah, told this newspaper that her commission regretted the total collapse, which occurred at 11:25 a.m. yesterday.

 

“The power has been successfully restored to every part of the country, except Calabar, Ugwuaji, Markurdi, Jos, Gombe, Yola and Maiduguri axes. Effort is, however, ongoing to ensure full restoration nationwide,” she said.

 

TCN had, in a statement made available to New Telegraph earlier, regretted to inform electricity consumers nationwide about the collapse of the system. “We regret the inconvenience this has caused electricity consumers. Investigations would be conducted to establish the immediate and remote cause(s) of the multiple trippings as soon as the grid is fully restored – considering that the grid had been relatively stable in the last couple of months,” she added.

 

One of the affected utility firms, Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC), had earlier told its customers that the outage “Nigerians are experiencing is due to a system collapse on the national grid.”

 

The power distribution company announced this on its twitter handle, noting that it is working with TCN to restore the light. The Electricity Transmission System, also known as national grid, had earlier on Friday, November 13, suffered a partial collapse, which plunged the whole of Lagos, Ibadan and environ into total darkness for about 37 minutes.

 

The nation’s electricity grid, it would be recalled, had collapsed more than108 times after the power sector was privatised, data from the TCN have shown. The TCN, which manages the national grid, is still fully owned and operated by the government.

 

While the TCN says the grid has a wheeling capacity of 8,100MW, the highest power generation ever attained in the country stands slightly above 5,375MW. Between November 1, 2013 and May 2020, the number of total grid collapse recorded was 83 while the grid partially collapsed 25 times.

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