Power supply in Nigeria appreciated marginally on Tuesday, 12th April 2022 to stand at 86,760.88MWh as power generation also recorded a slight improvement to 87,768.75MWh.
Energy generation peaked at 3,904.6MW on Tuesday, dropping by 1.96% compared to 3,982.8MW recorded in the previous day. On the other hand, off-peak generation declined by 13.23% to 2,932.1MW during the day under review.
This is following the downturn recorded last weekend when electricity supply in the country crashed by 47.3% to 37,440.1MWh, which is the lowest level since the recovery from the national grid collapse in March.
However, power generation and supply have seen improvements in the past three days, as the TCN restored the affected grids, which caused blackouts in some areas of the country over the weekend. Despite the improvement in energy supply and generation is still way below desired levels as Nigeria requires at least 105,000MWh of daily supply.
Highlight (12th April 2022)
- Peak generation – 3,904.6MW (-1.96%)
- Off-peak generation – 2,932.1MW (-13.23%)
- Energy generated – 87,768.75MWh (+0.3%)
- Energy sent out – 86,760.88MWh (+0.38%)
Also, the highest frequency for the day was 51.16Hz, while the lowest frequency was 49.25Hz.
Why the power disruption
According to the Minister of Power, Aliyu Abubakar, the national grid collapsed as a result of vandals, who disrupted the transmission tower between Akwa Ibom and Cross River states, leading to yet another blackout.
The grid, which has collapsed several times this year, collapsed at about 6:30 pm on Friday and crashed again at about 8:30 pm, causing power outages in many parts of the country.
Abubakar said, “While a detailed investigation into the immediate and remote causes of the recurring grid failure is currently ongoing by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission and System Operator (the operator of the national grid), the process of restoring supply is ongoing with some sections of the national grid already energised, and supply restored to consumers.
“Further to our earlier press release, we wish to apprise the general public that the immediate cause of the national blackout (system collapse) was an act of vandalism on a transmission tower on the Odukpani — Ikot Ekpene 330kV double circuit transmission line thus resulting in a sudden loss of about 400MW of generation. This consequently led to a cascade of plants shut down across the country.
“We wish to notify the public that power on the grid is being restored sequentially by the system operator as other on-grid power plants are being dispatched to cover the lost generation capacity from the Calabar power plant owned by the Niger Power Holding Company Ltd.”
Why this matters
Electricity is an essential need of many Nigerians and their businesses, especially given the surge in the price of diesel and recent fuel scarcity across the country.
The resumption of some normalcy in the supply of electricity will go a long way in serving as succour for the Nigerian populace.
Your contingency plans for electrical restoration is deplorable. Your customer relations is horrible. You have destroyed and damaged billions of Naira in household and commercial goods. Yet you are not accountable.You should have emergency plans for natural disasters, accidents, and vandalism. All those responsible for electrical generation have failed.
To my mind, we need to abandon the grid system and adopt modular electricity generating and distribution plants. This may entail the exploration of other energy sources to expand our generating and distribution capacity using the available resources of each federating unit. For example, in Plateau, there is a huge potential for water, air and solar sources. Currently, there is a hydroelectric project, owned by NESCO, that generates only 26MW of electricity for some rural areas in Plateau. If upgraded, this plant could max capacity to well over 200MW, while wind turbine farms and solar farms could be established in the vast countryside of the state.