Dennis Mernyi

Unless the Federal Government prioritizes the development of alternative electricity supply in the country, dependence on hydropower generation and gas for power, the power supply crises will persist.

The two traditional electricity generation sources (hydro from dams and gas from turbines) are indeed as old as the history of Nigeria itself, with their similar attendant problems.

Globally, governments, institutions, and organizations have adopted modern invented and innovative alternative technologies for power generation. These include power generation using modular, solar, wind, among others, as off-grid power generation sources.

These power sources are equally efficient, affordable, and sustainable. They also are also more off-grid generation, and only contribute to the national grid electricity supply where and when necessary. Over the decades, the nation’s national grid electricity supply has been the responsibility of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

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Established as a leading electricity transmission company, TCN is to ensure the transmission of electricity for distribution, with a dual role of a market and systems operator.

However, since the sale of distribution companies in 2013 by the Federal Government, these roles of the TCN have been bogged down by infringements, and the transmission capacities of the Distribution Companies (DisCos) have been badly affected.

The DisCos have over the years declined in capacity power load apportioned to each by the TCN. The company has equally regretted the attitudes of the DisCos over their refusal to take the load.

Presently, the TCN actually performs the dual role of a market and a systems operator, which does not allow for proper checks and balances. Stakeholders lament, sadly, that it also does not give room for appropriating sanctions on distribution companies rejecting load transmission.

Findings have shown that load rejection puts intense pressure on-grid capacity, causing persistent grid collapse. More so, the collapses have seen the country thrown into the epileptic power supply, and sometimes, total blackout nationwide, while jeopardizing several economic activities.

Leader of the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED), Sunday Oduntan, The Executive Director of the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors, ANED, Sunday Oduntan, has said that Ministries, Departments, Agencies (MDAs) of government and organizations such as the Nigerian Army, were owing DISCOs aome N60 billion between 2015 and February.

In a statement at a news conference in Abuja organized by the umbrella body of distribution companies, Oduntan disclosed this. He had also earlier decried the repeated system collapse, blaming the situation on the obsolete and analog system being used by TCN, which is owned by the government. According to him, TCN arbitrarily dumps a load on the DisCos. He added that the company lacked a properly protected transmission system, which would have isolated faults.

Oduntan noted that over 100 partial and total transmission system collapses had been recorded since the privatization of the sector in 2013. He urged the company to focus on realizing the actual delivery of its acclaimed 8100MW wheeling capacity as the current figure “is based on nothing more than a computer simulation.”

The ANED leader, therefore, said there is a need to address the TCN radial transmission network for better power delivery. According to him, the company needs to procure Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), to monitor the grid and trace system collapse faults.

Meanwhile, findings by the International Centre For Investigative Reporting (ICIR) have shown that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC)’s failure to unbundle the TCN has increased the risk of the collapse of the electricity grid.

While stakeholders have over time canvased for the unbundling of TCN for more effective and efficient management of the load transmission system, others, however, hold that the issue of unbundling of the TCN is NERC’s responsibility, as prescribed by the Act. According to a power sector governance expert, Mr. Chuks Nwani, a lot had been lost with TCN still left unbundled.

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“We are currently losing a lot without unbundling the TCN. The day you open up TCN for proper unbundling, you would solve the problem of dilapidated infrastructure as people would build their own independent transmission. Investors would come in and build their own transmission,” he said. “Unfortunately, the resultant effect is that we have experienced multiple rates of transmission failure that is in excess of one blackout per month – far beyond any international standard,” he said.

Nigerians have lamented the national power grid collapse that has yet again resulted in epileptic power supply and poor business operations.

Coupled with the current petrol scarcity and high cost in recent weeks, life has become very tough and miserable to many Nigerians as those who resort to the use of power generating sets have shut down due to the non-availability of fuel.

It is almost becoming a monthly occurrence, and it adversely affects social activities, business, and the economy at all levels. The national grid is managed by TCN but suffers incessant system collapse due to what experts described as poor infrastructure.