-Deborah Akinyosoye
Nigeria’s weak electricity grid collapsed again on Saturday morning throwing the country into a nationwide blackout.
It is the third time the national power grid has collapsed in the past seven days and the eighth in total this year.
A check on data supplied by the National System Operator, an arm of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, showed grid supply was 3,041.72MW as of 8 a.m.
It dropped significantly to 47MW by 9 a.m., with only Azura-Edo IPP on the grid.
Further analysis showed that the grid on Friday recorded a peak supply of 4,807.2MW with 4,011.27MW as the lowest supply.
The national grid, on its verified social media account, X (formerly Twitter) confirmed that seven of the nation’s eleven electricity distribution companies had zero load allocation.
DisCos
Only Benin DisCo (70 MW), Ibadan DisCo (60 MW), Ikeja DisCo (30 MW) and Eko DisCo (20 MW) had minimal supply as of 10.16 a.m.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria had, on Friday, announced that two towers along its 330kV Shiroro-Kaduna transmission lines one and two have been vandalized, damaging parts of both transmission lines.
According to reports from the Shiroro Regional office of TCN, the 330kV transmission line one tripped first, followed shortly by the second.
Efforts were still ongoing to reclose the first line, prompting the urgent mobilization of local vigilantes to patrol the lines.
This led to the discovery of two damaged towers – towers T133 and tower T 136 – with their cables badly damaged at several points.
It stated that arrangements were in top gear to deploy the newly procured “emergency restoration system” to the site, pending the reconstruction of the damaged towers.
“TCN has also conducted an aerial survey in collaboration with security operatives, given the area’s vulnerability to banditry, which poses a significant threat to both TCN installations and personnel.
“In the interim, our engineers have implemented a temporary measure to supply bulk power to the Kaduna and Kano regions via the 330kV Kaduna-Jos transmission line.
“The vandalized Shiroro-Kaduna 330kV lines 1&2 are vital lines through which bulk power is transmitted to parts of the North West region, with each line capable of carrying 600MW.
“The vandalism of the towers and transmission lines presents a significant challenge to bulk power transmission in that axis.
“We are, however, committed to re-erecting the towers and restringing the transmission lines to restore bulk power transmission through both 330kV power transmission lines,” the statement read.
It was signed by Ndidi Mbah, the General Manager, Public Affairs.
