Reports have revealed that the country’s power grid had collapsed at
least nine times in 2019.
In January alone, the country’s power grid collapsed twice while at
least two major collapses were recorded in April.
Investigation showed that the nine power grid collapses witnessed this
year were among at least 206 of such incidents that have been recorded
since 2010.
Scores of the “Total Grid System Collapse” occurred after the entire
electricity grid went off for several hours. There were also cases of
“Partial Grid System’ Collapse” when a section of the country was
thrown into darkness for hours due to major transmission line trips.
Apo, Abuja transformer fire led to outage in different parts of the country.
Officials of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) who probe such
incidents, traced the cause to high voltage level resulting from
multiple tripping on the Alaoji-Onitsha transmission line, a power
plant that shut down abruptly and a huge energy load rejected by the
11 Distribution Companies (DisCos).
Between 2010 and 2019, Nigerian electricity consumers have had to
contend with 206 power grid collapse, nine of which occurred in 2019,
records obtained from the system operator (SO), a section of TCN,
indicate.
A breakdown of the 206 grid collapse which often led to a power cut
for a whole region or even the entire country shows that 109 of the
incidents occurred from 2010 to 2013; while 97 others were recorded
from 2014 to 2019.
The country went into total darkness 22 times and recorded 20 partial
outages in 2010. The grid had 13 incidents of total collapse and six
partial incidents in 2011.
By 2012, there were 16 total collapses and eight partial ones. In 2013
when preparations for the privatization were topmost, there were 22
total power grid collapses while partial trappings occurred twice.
The post-privatization era also had its fair share of system collapse.
Although the situation improved in 2014 as records show, there were
nine total collapses and four partial ones.
By 2015, the trouble persisted with a record of six total and four
partial collapses. It became worst by 2016 when the grid tripped for
22 times and went off partially six times.
Investigations further revealed that in 2017, there were 15 total, and
nine partial collapses while last year, 12 total collapses were
recorded with one partial collapse.
At least nine total collapses have been recorded this year; four of
which occurred in January. The five others were spread across
February, April, May, June, and August.
The total collapse on June 30, which dropped grid power to 127MW, was
traced to a fire outbreak at the Benin transmission substation in Edo
State.
On August 30, the national electricity grid recorded another total
collapse, throwing the country into darkness for about 10 hours.
It was a total collapse as power generation on the grid dropped to 20MW.
Trend analyses of these collapses further indicate that national grid
outages were worst during some months in the rainy season. The highest
of such was in May, which had 30 collapses since 2010. June is next
with 29 occurrences.
TCN on various occasions this year blamed the DisCos’ load rejection
for the high frequency of grid collapses in the rainy season. It said
once it rains, the DisCos due to their poor networks, shutdown many
power feeders which denies customers of supply, and that when the grid
voltages became too high for lack of consumption, a collapse or
frequency disturbance became inevitable.
Records of power generation since the privatization in 2013 to
December 2018 indicate that the GenCos have more capacity to deliver
power than they had before the privatization.
