Grid Epilepsy Forces Blackout On Nigerians Again
By SUNDAY ABBA, Abuja
For the umpteenth time the Nigerian national power grid has suffered another collapse, resulting in another bout of blackout on Thursday, even as electricity consumers are yet to recover from the previous one of Tuesday, 5th November, 2024.
The grid reportedly experienced system collapse Thursday at 11:29 hours, disrupting transmission to load centres for onward distribution to end-users by power distribution companies (DisCos).
Although the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) shouldered with the statutory obligation of monitoring and managing the grid had not spoken to explain as at press time, it had blamed the Tuesday’s incident which it described as partial system collapse on series of line and generator trippings.
Faced with incessant grid breakdowns in recent times, TCN has been making public its efforts and determination to ensure the stability in the system, by overcoming the copious challenges of obsolete infrastructure, vandalism and theft of electrical installations, engineering and technological gaps among others.
The latest incident of Thursday came barely a day after the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, received report on resolution of the incessant grid collapse from the committee set up to advise the government on ways to overcome the challenge.
Cases of grid collapse, disturbance or partial collapse has has been rampant in recent times, throwing parts, if all of the country into underserved darkness before remediation.
SUMMIT POST reports that the first major blackout of this year occurred on February 4, 2024, when the grid’s capacity plummeted from 2,407 megawatts to a mere 31 MW by midday, hitting zero shortly after.
The grid has since then continued to falter, with subsequent breakdowns on August 5 and three times in October.
Notably, the October 14 collapse was followed by a partial failure the next day, after which another disturbance occurred on 19th October.
But experts have asserted at various fora that collapse of the grid could be a fallout of the failure of any of the the sub-sectors in the value chain – generation, transmission, and distribution.