Fawaz Adebisi
The Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN has restored the national grid that collapsed in River State earlier today.
This development comes four hours after a fire incident occured at the Afam Power Generating Station, resulting to total blackout in some states in the country.
According to a statement by the spokesperson for the commission, Ndidi Mbah, the collapse led to the tripping of units at Afam III and Afam VI.
He further noted that the fire incident destabilized the grid, causing partial collapse.
“The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) announces the full restoration of the national grid following a fire incident at the Afam Power Generating Station, which caused a partial disturbance of the nation’s grid.At 02:41 Hours today, 15th April, 2024, a fire erupted at the Afam V 330kV bus bar coupler, leading to the tripping of units at Afam III and Afam VI.
“This resulted in a sudden generation loss of MW and 305MW respectively, destabilizing the grid and causing a partial collapse,” Mbah said.
Furthermore, the commission explained that the collapse did not affect the Ibom Power Plant which was isolated from the grid, and responsible for the electricity supply in some parts of Port Harcourt Region.
The recent collapse, which occured today led to the loss of 64.70 megawatt generation according to data from the Independent System Operator (ISO), a branch of the Transmission Company of Nigeria.
As gathered , this is the sixth collapse in seven months.
Recall that in September 15, 2023, it was reported that the national grid collapsed twice in six hours.
Similarly, on December 11, 2023 it was also reported that there was a total black out in the country, following the collapse of the nation’s national grid.
In the same vein, on December 31, of the same year, another national grid collapse plunged Nigerians into total darkness.
In 2024, the third “reported” national grid collapse was recorded today.
On February 4, 2024, a national grid collapse was reported, following this , in March of the same year, another national grid collapse was recorded.
These collapses occurred in the country, despite the heavy investment in electricity in Nigeria.
Nigeria has sunk billions into its power sector but the investment has not manifested into stable electricity supply.
According to research, at least 40% of Nigerian households rely on petrol-powered generators as back-up for their electricity.
Analysts have also said the billions of naira the government had budgeted for power have not yielded commensurate results. In the 2024 budget, the power sector was allocated N344bn ($237m), a near 50% increase from the N239bn it got last year.
In 2019, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said the federal government had spent N900bn in the power sector alone since 2015.
Confirming today’s collapse in a statement, Jos DisCo said: “The current outage being experienced within our franchise States is a result of loss of power supply from the national grid. The loss of power supply from the national grid occurred in the early hours at about 0242Hours of today, Monday, 15th April 2024, hence the loss of power supply on all our feeders.”
The company’s head of Corporate Affairs, Dr Friday Adakole Elijah, expressed hope that the grid is restored for normal power supply to its esteemed customers.
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