The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) announced on Sunday that the national power grid has been restored after a partial collapse on Saturday.
Ndidi Mbah, TCN’s Public Affairs General Manager, explained that the incident occurred at approximately 15:09 hours on July 6, 2024, marking the third partial grid disturbance this year, in addition to one total collapse.
Mbah attributed the collapse to the unexpected tripping of three units at a power-generating station, which suddenly removed 313MW from the grid, leading to instability and a loss of bulk supply to a portion of the national grid.
In response to the sudden drop in generation and subsequent frequency dip, the system operator isolated a section of the grid, including the Ibom Power Station, which continued to supply power to areas like Uyo, Aba, Itu, Eket, and Calabar, even as the rest of the grid lost power.
Restoration efforts began immediately after the incident, and by 21:57 hours on Saturday, the affected sections of the grid were fully restored.
Electricity consumers have expressed frustration over the frequent grid collapses. Reports indicate that power generation from all plants dropped to a mere 70MW at 3 pm, down from a peak of 3916MW earlier in the day.
Consequently, distribution companies received no power allocation by Saturday evening.
This grid collapse occurred just three days after the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission approved a tariff increase for Band A customers, raising the rate from N206.80 per kilowatt-hour to N209.50/kWh.
Princewill Okorie, Executive Director of the Electricity Consumer Protection Advocacy Centre, criticized the recurring grid failures despite the tariff hike.
He pointed out that unmetered customers are still charged during outages and questioned the quality of materials and management of the grid.
Okorie also lamented the focus on revenue collection over system stability and called for transparency in the utilization of funds in the power sector.
Adetayo Adegbemle, Convener and Executive Director of PowerUp Nigeria, echoed these sentiments, stating that all parties in the electricity value chain should be embarrassed by their inability to prevent grid collapses.
He suggested that accountability and leadership changes might drive improvements.
The Enugu Electricity Distribution Company reported that the collapse affected its TCN stations, disrupting services in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States.
Emeka Ezeh, EEDC’s Head of Corporate Communications, confirmed the system collapse at 15:09 hours and the resultant widespread power outage.
Similarly, the Kano DisCo informed its customers of the grid collapse at 3:10 pm, resulting in a power outage across its franchise states.
The company assured customers that power would be restored once the national grid is back online and apologized for the inconvenience.
