By Olusegun Olanrewaju
For the third time in a week, the Nigerian national power grid once again was reported to have crashed at last weekend.
And for a grid that has been a source of perennial anguish to all citizens, business concerns, and sundry institutions, that is another source of national agony.
Bandying statistics have unveiled that Nigeria has spent a whopping N2.7trn to power its electricity grid in 25 years.
This latest collapse occurred on Saturday at 8:16 am when power generation reportedly dropped to zero.
Before the collapse, the grid tripped off on Monday and Tuesday during restoration.
Before last weekend’s collapse, power generation reportedly stood at 3,042 megawatts at about 8 a.m., but by 7 a.m., it had peaked at 3,968MW.
The official explanation for this October’s latest series of breakdowns (an all-time high) was a transformer explosion.
According to the regulatory authority, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), the explosion of a transformer at the Jebba Transmission station in Niger State is to be blamed for the collapse.
As a result, many parts of the country experienced a blackout in the early hours of the day.
The NERC stated it was “concerned by the escalating incidence of grid disturbances … reversing many of the gains recently achieved in reducing infrastructure deficit and improving grid stability.”
Last year, the Honourable Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, raised the ‘inevitability’ of ‘incessant power grid collapse’ because of depleting grip infrastructure, among other things.
But the rate of the collapse in recent times has been frightening, experts say.
Of the latest issue, the NERC stated, “Initial reports on the grid disturbance that occurred this morning indicate that today’s outage was triggered by an explosion of a current transformer at the Jebba transmission station at 0815hrs and an associated cascade of power plants shut down arising from the loss of load.”
On Saturday, the commission said, “However, efforts to restore supply have advanced with power significantly restored, as at 1300hrs, in 33 states and the FCT.”
The NERC added that it was working to ensure ‘more ‘discipline’ in grid management and optimised investment in infrastructure.
The statement noted, “In pursuit of finding a permanent resolution to the challenges of the national grid, the Commission shall shortly conduct an investigative public hearing to identify immediate and remote causes of recurring incidences of grid disturbances and widespread outages.
“The date and venue of the public hearing will shortly be announced in the national dailies, and stakeholders will be encouraged to participate.”
Earlier, the grid tripped off on Monday and Tuesday before restoration.
On its verified social media account, X, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), disclosed that seven of the nation’s 11 electricity distribution companies had zero load allocation.
TCN’s General Manager, Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah, explained that a report from the NCC (National Control Centre) showed that “The bus section of a current transformer exploded at 330kV Jebba Transmission Substation.
“As expected, the protection system was activated, and this promptly opened the bus bars to curtail the explosion, thereby preventing the outbreak of fire and further damage to adjacent equipment.
“The action of the protection system led to a temporary disturbance on the grid.
“Our engineers at Jebba have successfully switched, isolating the faulty current transformer. They have reconfigured the bus bar arrangement, restoring power supply to the station and other grid parts.”
The frequent collapses of the grip have forced the authorities to take far-reaching measures to check the trend. The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) plans to hold a public hearing on the issue, and the Federal Government contemplates engaging independent operators to handle the issue.
Read Also:Incessant grid collapses; NERC fixes October 24 for public hearing
*Restoration
Officials announced yesterday that power has been restored in parts of Lagos, Osun, Ibadan, and the Oyo State capital, as shown by the following statistics.
“As of 3:31pm DisCo Load Abuja DisCo- 80 MW; Benin DisCo-100 MW; Eko DisCo-200 MW; Enugu DisCo-80 MW; Ibadan DisCo-100 MW; Ikeja DisCo-200 MW.”
However, when filing the above report, it was disclosed that other DisCos, including those at Jos, Kaduna, Kano, Yola, and Port Harcourt, had ‘zero’ MW on them.
The repeated power failures have intensified frustrations across the country as businesses, homes, and critical infrastructure continue to feel the pinch of the nation’s unreliable electricity supply.
Many states reported total blackouts. The latest failure followed two other collapses earlier in the week, further straining the already fragile power system.
This collapse marked the eighth grid disturbance in 2024, adding to challenges that have long plagued Nigeria’s power sector.
As a cushioning measure, NERC stated, “In pursuit of finding a permanent resolution to the challenges of the national grid, the Commission shall shortly conduct an investigative public hearing to identify immediate and remote causes of recurring incidence of grid disturbances and widespread outages.
“The date and venue of the public hearing will shortly be announced in the national dailies, and stakeholders will be encouraged to participate.”
*Senate told in 2015 Nigeria spent N2.7trn between 1999 & 2015 for electricity
Amid the national confusion over power grid collapse, the Senate was tuned to an unentertaining item of news that some N2.74trn has been spent on the power sector since 1999, yet no noticeable progress has been made in the last 25 years,
Disclosing this highly distressing information, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Power, Godknows Igali, revealed that despite this revelation, the sector has remained one of the most problematic, as unstable electricity supply has looked like an unsolvable problem.
At an investigative hearing of the Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Power, Igali pointed to the lack of adequate investment in the sector as one of the factors that militated against it.
Citing loopholes in the law regarding the power sector, the permanent disclosed that no engineer had been employed in the industry for some 11 years.
According to the testimony, “Since 1999, the sum appropriated is N1,565,638,385,735, and actual release was N948,212,192,810, including all the value chain and all agencies.
“What was released under Multi Year Tariff Order (MYTO) from 2009 to 2013 under subsidy is N155,089,910,730 to cushion the shock of the slash in tariff.’’
Igali also disclosed that the Nigeria Integrated Power Project (NIPP) received $8.3bn (about N1,66trn) from the Excess Crude Account to fund 10 power plant projects during the period, adding that the projects had been completed.
Igali further revealed that, out of the 79 generating plants in the country as of 1999, only 19 were functional, generating only 1,750 megawatts in total.
The permanent secretary also testified, “When democracy came, the government inherited the sector that had not made capital investment for a long time, and not a single engineer was recruited in 19 years.
“Despite the government’s effort to invest, we have not been able to invest consistently in the power sector. Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) requested N147bn in 2011, but it was allocated only N45bn, out of which only N30bn was released, and that has been the story.”
Immediately after the presentation, the committee grilled some of the investments made in the sector during the period and requested more information.
The committee also directed that the ministry’s audited account showing all investments and expenditures, including the details of supplementary budgets, be submitted.
In his response, the chairman of the committee, Abubakar Kyari, said: “We want to see cooperation between all agencies in the power ministry and know if there is any overlap that constrains the sector’s function.”
He commiserated with the ministry over the loss of some of its staff who restored critical power infrastructure across the country.
“We will give you notice on other issues we have with the power sector; we shall continue our interaction tomorrow with Gencos, Discos, and the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC),” Kyari added.
The Senate ad-hoc committee on power, inaugurated in August, was mandated to conduct an inquest into the sector from 1999 to 2015.
The committee began its hearing on Tuesday.
*The unending phenomenon
It appeared that the recent gale of grid system collapses peaked with ex-President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime, during which 99 cases were recorded.
Barely a year and a half into his administration, President Bola Tinubu’s administration has recorded eight incidents, the majority of them in October 2024 alone.
By mid-2023, Nigeria’s electricity grid was reported to have collapsed 46 times (2017 to 2023).
Also, last year, it was reported that, at one point, a grid collapse came after the nation’s power grid had only achieved uninterrupted stability for 400 consecutive days.
A timeline of Nigeria’s national grid collapses this year alone shows that, in a year marked by recurring power disruptions, Nigeria‘s national grid has experienced multiple collapses, causing widespread outages nationwide.
“These events have raised concerns about the reliability of the nation’s energy infrastructure,” a source was quoted as saying.
Nigeria’s electricity distribution companies reported “a total system collapse” on Thursday, September 14, 323, after a fire on a major transmission line caused widespread blackouts across Africa’s biggest economy before power slowly started to return.
The Minister for Power, Adebayo Adelabu, said the fire had caused an explosion on a transmission line connecting the Kainji and Jebba power plants in north central Niger State, tripping the grid.
“The fire has been fully arrested, and over half of the connections are now up, and the rest will be fully restored in no time,” Adelabu said in a statement.
It was reported that power generation fell to zero in the early hours but had risen to 1,341 megawatts (MW) by 1400 GMT, still well below the daily average of 4,100 MW, data from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) showed.
Critical incidents in 2024, as highlighted on the X social media handle, include the February 4 incident, when the first collapse of the year was recorded, leaving the country without a public power supply for several hours.
According to reports, the collapse also led to prolonged power outages in many regions across the country, with distribution companies struggling to restore electricity.
The grid provider’s X handle fingered technical faults as the primary reason, with recovery efforts spanning several hours.
*Control efforts
It is generally believed that Nigeria’s power expenditures show that money alone won’t solve the electricity problem.
For Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, electricity access is a major problem. From households to firms, power seems elusive.
According to a report by The Guardian, the electricity grid has collapsed 99 times in eight years under President Muhammadu Buhari, with little success recorded in terms of generation and distribution.
To emphasize its point, the government budgeted N829.788bn for various electricity infrastructure projects between 2018 and 2023. This is in addition to the $2.3bn Siemens deal, which failed to deliver the 7000 megawatts of power it promised.
The amount budgeted for capital expenditure in 2023 is N195bn, funded from loans.
Nigeria’s power expenditure shows money alone won’t solve electricity problems.
Of the budgeted amounts, N376.979bn was cash-backed and released by the government between 2020 and 2022.
However, these expenditures have not improved the fortunes of the power sector. Despite the country’s electricity needs, the funds released are not utilized.
In 2020 (September), of the N128.005bn capital appropriation, N68.672bn was released and cash-backed.
However, according to data from the Budget Office of the Federation, only N44.224 bn of the amount released was used. The rest was not utilised.
In 2021, of the N206.745bn devoted to capital expenditure, N164.307bn was released and cash-backed. However, only N122.256bn was utilised.
Also, in 2022, of the N296.637bn appropriation, N144bn was released, cash-backed, and utilised.
*The impact and way forward
2024’s national grid collapses have reignited debates on the urgent need for investment in the nation’s energy infrastructure.
With each collapse, businesses, industries, and households bear the brunt of the instability. Despite ongoing efforts to reinforce grid management, the frequency of these collapses suggests that more long-term solutions are required.
In collaboration with stakeholders in the energy sector, the federal government has promised reforms, including investments in renewable energy and decentralised power grids, to reduce reliance on the fragile national system.
However, the timeline of collapses this year has underscored the critical need for action to prevent future disruptions.
*Nod to independent operators on transferred management
Meanwhile, the Federal Government, through NERC, has said that there are ongoing discussions to transfer the management of the national grid to Independent System Operators, in line with the provisions of the Electricity Act 2023 to engender more discipline in grid management.
