Nigeria’s national electricity grid has been restored following a system disturbance at 4:28 p.m. on Thursday, says the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) which provides vital transmission infrastructure between generating companies (GenCos) and distribution companies’ (DisCos) feeder sub-stations.
This partially lifts a veil of darkness off homes and businesses around the country in an electricity system short on capacity.
In a statement on Friday evening, the TCN said full recovery was achieved by 10:00 p.m. that same day.
The TCN said that a report from the National Control Centre (NCC) in Osogbo, indicated that the system disturbance was triggered by a significant reduction in generation capacity, primarily due to gas constraints.
It noted that the reduction led to a rapid decline in system frequency, creating a sudden grid imbalance.
It added that the imbalance in grid stability was exacerbated by the sudden tripping of Egbin generation turbine 3, resulting in an additional loss of 167MW load and the subsequent collapse of the grid.
“The grid has, however, since been recovered and is stable, and is currently transmitting all the generated power to distribution load centres nationwide.”
Nigeria is endowed with large oil, gas, hydro and solar resources, and it has the potential to generate 12,522 MW of electric power from existing plants. On most days, however, it is only able to dispatch around 4,000 MW, which is insufficient for a country with a population of about 200 million people.
The Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors has decried the unstable power supply across the country, saying Nigeria needs to generate about 33,000 Megawatts to have stable electricity.
Factors undermining adequate electricity supply in the country are said to include insecurity, overloading of distribution transformers, non-diversification of sources of energy (fuels) used to drive the electricity generating stations, bribery, corruption and mismanagement of public funds in the execution and running of electricity power projects.
The challenges in the transmission segment are said to lie in the lack of modern transmission lines and equipment, gross mismanagement, poor maintenance of available infrastructure and inefficient grid design. Distribution companies face the problem of huge Aggregate Technical, Commercial, and Collection (ATC&C) losses.
