Nigeria’s electricity grid suffers first major outages in 2022
Oredola Adeola
For the first time in the new year, on Monday, January 17, 2022, Nigeria’s electricity grid suffered a major outage as some parts of the country were plunged into blackout thereby worsening the supply situation by some of the electricity distribution companies.
The supply failure, which was noticed at the early hours of Monday, was confirmed by three of the country’s electricity distribution companies in separate messages to their customers.
Ikeja Electricity , IE, via its official facebook page said, “Dear Esteemed Customers, the power outage you are currently experiencing is due to load shedding from the national grid. Normalcy will be restored as soon as capacity increases.
“Our technical team is working with other partners in the electricity value chain to improve the situation.
“We regret any inconvenience this may cause you.
Eko Electricity Distribution company, EKEDC also in its official facebook addressed to its customers, said “We regret to inform you that EGBIN/AJAH LINES 3 (330KV) tripped on O/C R,Y&B phase (145MVA) affecting AJAH, ALAGBON, LEKKI & AKOKA Transmission Substations.
“This has led to outages/load shedding in Yaba, V.I, Ikoyi, Lekki, Ajah, Ibeju and environs. We are working with our TCN partners on a swift resolution. Kindly bear with us as we will keep you updated on the situation.
Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, IBEDC, in a public announcement via its official facebook, said, “Notice of low power supply across Oyo, Ibadan & Ogun regions.
“Kindly note that the drop in power supply currently being experienced within Ogun State. Opy and Ibadan metropolis is due to a drop in power allocation occasioned by low electricity generated.
“We are working with relevant stakeholders in the electricity value chain and assuring our valuable customers that supply will improve as soon as power allocation increases.
“We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience, IBEDC concluded.
The spokesperson for the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, Ndidi Mbah, in her response claimed the issues with IBEDC is low generation which has nothing to do with TCN.
Meanwhile Energyday gathered that grid, which is being managed by government-owned TCN, has continued to suffer system collapse over the years as a result of lack of spinning reserve that is meant to forestall such occurrences.
Spinning reserve is the generation capacity that is online but unloaded and that can respond within 10 minutes to compensate for generation or transmission outages.
The recent partial system collapse as reported is linked to failure of a section of the grid.
Total electricity generation in the country, according to the Nigerian Electricity System Operator, stood at 4,285.4MegaWatt as of 6am on Monday, 17/01/2022 down from ,4,606.6MW on Sunday, 16/01/2022.
