Nigeria’s national power grid has been suffering collapses in recent weeks, resulting in a complete blackout across the country.
The collapse of Nigeria’s single electricity grid on Tuesday and Thursday last week, which took the number of such incidents in 2024 to 11, has again generated much concern in the country, as millions of homes and businesses continue to suffer blackout and resultant losses and pains.
The national power grid, which has been under the control and management of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, suffered two collapses last week, with the first incident happening at 2.09pm on Tuesday, followed by another one at 11am on Thursday, as none of the 26 power plants generated electricity as at the time.
The Federal Government had attributed the repeated grid collapse, which have become an embarrassment to Nigeria, to many factors including aged and ageing facilities, lack of maintenance and requisite investment, as well as alleged sabotage by unarmed forces.
The country’s first major blackout of the year occurred on February 4, with further breakdowns recorded on August 5 and three times in October.
The October 14 incident led to a partial outage the next day, and a subsequent disturbance on October 19 nearly caused another complete collapse.
The grid collapsed three times in 2015, 28 times in 2016, 24 times in 2017, 13 times in 2018, and 11 times in 2019.
The grid frequency appeared to improve from 2020 to 2023 as the grid collapsed 14 times within this period until Buhari vacated office on May 29, 2023.
“Nigeria’s power sector urgently needs decentralised, off-grid solutions as the national grid remains weak, unreliable, and costly to maintain.”
It was observed that the Tinubu administration carried on with the grid collapse cases, with three of such incidents occurring between June and December 2023.
Nigerians endured more nationwide blackouts on September 14, 2023 when the grid collapsed due to a fire on a major transmission line.
On September 20, 2023, Nigeria witnessed another round of widespread blackouts across the country the preceding day as the national power grid collapsed again, making it the third grid collapse in about five days during that period.
Since January 2024 till date, the grid has collapsed about 10 times.
As of now, the Tinubu administration has recorded no fewer than 12 collapses in 18 months.
Blackouts are frequent in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with over 200 million people, due to ageing power infrastructure, vandalism and inadequate gas supply for its thermal plants, which account for over 75 percent of output.
Although Nigeria has the infrastructure to generate about 13,000 megawatts of power, its creaking grid can only distribute a third of it, forcing businesses and households to run costly fuel generators.
The impact was already known, as people were spending much of their hard-earned money on providing self-generation.
Businesses were suffering as the grid collapse was adding to rising inflation in the country.
Also, the Gencos have bemoaned the impact of the incessant grid collapse on their operation.
They claimed that the incident contributes to the rise of the debts owed them by the government, which currently stands at N2.5 trillion.
Frequent grid collapse leads to substantial revenue losses for GenCos.
When the grid fails, power generation is halted, and GenCos cannot sell electricity. This disruption affects their cash flow and financial stability.
The ongoing instability in the power sector has led to a significant accumulation of debt. For instance, GenCos in Nigeria are currently grappling with a debt of approximately N2.5 trillion. This debt burden is exacerbated by the inability to consistently generate and sell power.
Experts in the power sector have also accused some unscrupulous contractors in the sector of indulging in sabotaging the networks so as to win more contracts.
They alleged that contractors are actually targeting it so that they can get more contracts.
According to them it is similar to what is happening in the oil and gas industry where the same contractors are the ones that will sabotage pipelines so that they can be reissued repair contracts or pipeline protection contracts.
That is what they allege is going on with the national grid which is now becoming a cash cow for contractors.
Consequently, they have proposed the adoption of a decentralised grid system which allows state governments to also participate in providing distributed generation.
According to them, the whole idea of everybody getting connected to the national grid is ridiculous, considering the country’s vast nature, which does not support a grid system that is not reinforced.
More importantly, according to the experts, Nigeria cannot work with the existing 11 Discos, owing to their bankruptcy.
Nigeria’s power sector urgently needs decentralised, off-grid solutions as the national grid remains weak, unreliable, and costly to maintain.
There is an urgent need for immediate reforms, the pressing need for regional grids and stronger regulatory oversight to prevent further collapses.
The country needs staggered and decentralised solutions completely off-grid because it cannot rely on the grid that is weak and expensive to replace.
The instability in power supply caused by grid collapse, not only affects Gencos but also industries and businesses that rely on a stable electricity supply.
This could lead to broader economic impacts, including reduced productivity and increased operational costs for businesses.
The frequent grid collapse highlights the need for robust regulatory frameworks and policies to ensure the stability and reliability of the power grid.
This included investments in infrastructure, maintenance, and the adoption of modern technologies to enhance grid resilience.
However, addressing these challenges require coordinated efforts from government, regulatory bodies, and the power sector to improve infrastructure, enforce maintenance protocols, and ensure financial viability for Gencos.
