Thursday, March 28, 2024

Businesses suffer as national grid collapses seventh time in 2022

Nigeria’s electricity grid, on Monday, collapsed at about 10:51 am, causing a nationwide blackout and hiccup in the business sector.

The collapse happened barely over three months after the last national system collapse recorded in July 2022.

Generation data obtained from the system operator showed that power generation, which was put at 3714MWs as of 6 am on Monday, dropped to zero as of 11 am the same day.

The grid has collapsed at least seven times this year, which authorities blame on technical problems.

Electricity distribution companies said the outage happened earlier on Monday and they were working with the Transmission Company of Nigeria to restore supplies. They did not state the cause of the outage.

Both Abuja Electricity Distribution Company and Enugu Electricity Distribution Company confirmed the collapse of the national grid in separate statements on Monday, disclosing that the national grid collapsed at about 10:55 am.

AEDC’s statement reads: “Dear esteemed customer, please be informed that the current power outage is due to a system failure from the National Grid.

“The system collapsed at about 10:55am today, 26th September 2022, causing the outage currently being experienced.

“We appeal for your understanding as all stakeholders are working hard to restore normal supply. Thank you”.

The statement by EEDC reads: “The Enugu Electricity Distribution Company PLC (EEDC) wishes to inform its esteemed customers of a system collapse which occurred at 10:51am today, 26th September, 2022.

“This has resulted in the loss of supply currently being experienced across the network.

Due to this development, all our interface TCN stations are out of supply, and we are unable to provide service to our customers in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States.

“We are on standby awaiting detailed information of the collapse and restoration of supply from the National Control Centre (NCC), Osogbo. Thank you.”

Announcing the development on Monday, the Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company, in a statement via its verified Twitter handle, said, “This is to inform you that the outage you are currently experiencing is due to the system collapse of the national grid, which occurred earlier today at 10:50hrs. This has affected the Transmission Stations within our network and resulted in the loss of power supply to our customers. Kindly bear with us as we await the restoration of the grid.”

However, the TCN said on Monday night that it had restored the national grid after its partial collapse on Monday.

Mrs. Ndidi Mbah, TCN’s General Manager, Public Affairs made this known in a statement in Abuja.

Mbah said that the national grid experienced partial system disturbance at about 10.51am, as result of sudden drop in system frequency, which created system instability.

She said that the restoration of the affected grid commenced immediately at 11.55am with Osogbo/Ihovbor, followed by Jebba/Osogbo, Kainji/Jebba, Benin/Onitsha, Shiroro/Kaduna, Shiroro/Katampe and Alaoji/Ikot-Ekpene.

Others are Lokoja/Gwagwalada, Odukpani/Ikot Ekpene, Benin/Omotosho, Oke-Aro/Ikeja west, Egbin/Oke-Aro and Kaduna/Kano.

She said the grid restoration has almost been completed, adding that the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry regret any inconveniences caused.

Mbah said NESI appreciated the understanding of electricity customers within and outside the country.

According to her, NESI is committed to leveraging the concerted interventions instituted so far to enhance power supply reliability so that the issue of system disturbance will soon become outdated.

She said the National Control Centre would launch a full-scale investigation “to establish and ascertain the cause of the partial disturbance as this unwholesome event has resulted in aggregated generation loss.”

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