National power grid has begun a slow recovery after the first collapse of the year left cities and villages without public power supply across the country.
The collapse which occurred around 11 am on Sunday crashed the power supplied through the grid to 59.90 Megawatts from 2,658MW recorded an hour earlier. The grid had only Ibom Power at 31MW and Azura IPP at 28MW as the only power plants on the grid.
It however began a slow recovery with data supplied by the Independent National System Operator showing that as at 5pm, grid has risen to 525.7MW with Azura rising to 353MW, Egbin Power generating 142MW and Ibom Power at 30.7MW.
Earlier, the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, AEDC, had informed its customers across the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Kogi, Niger and Nasarawa states that the power outage was caused by the collapse of the national grid.
The on its verified X (formerly twitter) handle stated: “The Management of Abuja Electricity Distribution Plc (AEDC) wishes to inform its valued customers that the power outage being experienced is as a result of a system failure from the national grid at 11:21 hours today, 4th February 2024 which has led to a nationwide power outage.
“Be rest assured that we are working with the relevant stakeholders to restore power as soon as the grid is stabilized. We appeal for your patience”.
While the Federal Government owned Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, was yet to advance a reason for the latest collapse, the company has over the years blamed vandalism of power transmission towers and power generation plants for the frequent grid collapses in the country. In 2023, the grid collapsed thrice after over 400 days of stability.
Meanwhile, concerned about low power supply affecting some parts of the country, Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu at the weekend met with top management teams of power generating companies (GenCos) and distribution companies (DisCos) in a bid to find lasting solution to blackout in some parts of the country.
A statement by his media aide, Bola Tunji, yesterday said Chief Adelabu told Managing Directors and Chief Executive Officers of the companies at separate meeting in his office, that there was a noticeable improvement in power supply during the yuletide period but the situation changed in the New Year with poor supply leading to blackouts across the country.
The Minister said his investigation revealed that the poor supply was due to low gas supply to GenCos.
“It was based on the need to understand the challenges first hand that led to inspection visits to power facilities in Olorunsogo in Ogun State and Omotosho in Ondo State. The problem is traceable to low supply of gas and we need to resolve this as quickly as possible”, he said.
Tunji said the meeting also discussed issues of indebtedness to GenCos by the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Company, NBET.
“We are aware that the sector has liquidity challenges, but we need to have a minimum threshold, we are working on revalidating the debt and determining a fair resolution”, he quoted the Minister to have said.