FOR the second time this year, the country has been plunged into nationwide darkness after the national electricity grid suffered a major failure today.
The collapse, which occurred around 11.00 am, was confirmed by two of the country’s electricity distribution companies in separate messages to their customers.
“We regret to inform you that the power outage currently being experienced across our franchise – Kaduna, Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara States – is as a result of the collapse of the national grid,” Kaduna Electric said on Twitter.
Eko Electricity Distribution Company Plc, in a text message to its customers, said, “Dear customer, there is a partial system collapse on the national grid. Our TCN partners are working to restore supply immediately. Please bear with us.”
The grid, which is being managed by the government-owned Transmission Company of Nigeria, has continued to suffer system collapse over the years amid a lack of spinning reserve that is meant to forestall such occurrences.
The most recent was on February 17.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) describes the situation as a normal global occurrence, however, the collapse of the power supply, each time it occurs, comes with a huge economic loss for consumers, especially commercial entities.
World Economic Forum’s data that measured grid-related performance under the Energy Architecture Performance Index (EAPI) for 2017, ranked Nigeria 110th among 127 countries.
African countries like Congo, Namibia, Ghana, South Africa, Cameroon, Kenya, Zambia, Botswana, and Sudan were ranked far better, in terms of system performance, than Nigeria.
Data from the TCN indicate from November 1, 2013, to December 2020, the number of recorded total grid failures was 84, while the grid partially collapsed 43 times.
Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED), the umbrella body of distribution companies, had decried repeated system collapse, blaming the situation on the obsolete, analogue system being used by the TCN.
