On Monday, the national electricity grid failed in part, leaving some parts of the country without power.
The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company described the situation as a system failure that impacted its customers on Monday afternoon.
In the evening, the AEDC reported that some of its customers still lacked power.
“We understand that some of our customers are still without power due to a system failure on the national grid at 2.55 p.m. today, August 5, 2024. The AEDC thanked the public for their understanding and patience, saying, “Please be assured that the system is gradually stabilizing and we are working diligently with all relevant stakeholders to restore power to the affected areas as quickly as possible.”
Ndidi Mbah, the Transmission Company of Nigeria’s spokesperson, promised to provide more information about the incident when contacted. She had yet to revert up till when this report was filed.
Meanwhile, checks by our correspondent confirmed that hourly power generation by the various plants dropped from 3,749 megawatts at 2 pm to 3,241MW and 1,255MW as of 3 pm. It was 4,067MW as of 11 am.
The power generation experienced gradual restoration, returning to 3,00MW at 8 pm.
Our correspondent observed that the Egbin Power Plant which generated 222MW till 2 pm dropped to 0.00MW throughout the day.
This is the fifth time in 2024 that consumers will experience power outages occasioned by incidents from the grid.
While speaking in a recent interview with our correspondent, the Executive Director, Electricity Consumer Protection Advocacy Centre, Princewill Okorie, regretted that the grid keeps having issues despite the hike in electricity tariff.
I wonder what the government has been doing to stop these incidents? Okorie bemoaned the fact that unmetered customers would still be required to pay for the duration of the collapse.
“What are the causes of these grid failures or collapses? Are the materials used in building the grip of good quality and standard? Who is managing the grid? The players in the sector are more interested in collecting money from the consumers rather than making the system stable.
“What you hear more about the power sector is payment. The money that the international communities are bringing to the industry and the money that is unlawfully collected from the consumers, where are they being utilised? The operational expenditures of the Discos, and how do they spend them?
“In the past few months, they keep increasing tariffs yet the power sector is inefficient. They are interested in collecting money but whether the money is judiciously utilised or not, nobody cares. They keep overbilling customers. The desperation to collect revenue from customers for services not delivered is a challenge.
“Now that the grid collapsed, the unmetered customers will still be made to pay for darkness. That is injustice. Grid collapse is a problem that needs to be resolved once and for all, according to Okorie.
