NGC’s failure to meet 3-day repairs deadline set to prolong power outages into yuletide season
… as TCN fails to issue public statement explaining maintenance delay
Oredola Adeola
The ongoing power outage in some parts of Nigeria is expected to extend beyond the Christmas holiday due to the Nigeria Gas Company’s failure to complete maintenance on a pipeline supplying gas to Egbin Power Station, leading to a 3-day deadline failure.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) that had earlier issued a statement announcing the maintenance plans, has also failed to issue another public apology explaining the delay and to announce a new completion date.
The TCN had in a statement published by EnergyDay on Tuesday, notified the public that by Tuesday December 18, 2023, Egbin Power generating station will shut down to allow the Nigeria Gas Company (NGC) to maintain linking gas pipeline supplying gas to the power station.
TCN in the statement said, “The station will be shut down for 3 days from today. This means a reduction of 676MW of bulk power generated into the nation’s grid for 3 days and consequently the quantum of bulk power available to be delivered to distribution companies load centres nationwide for the period,” the notice released on Monday stated.
EnergyDay check on Friday showed that the national grid is still short of 676MW of bulk power generated, with only 3,766MW of electricity distributed within the DisCos’ network.
The ongoing outage affected some parts of Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Ondo, and other areas under the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company and Benin DisCo, as both received 425MW and 289MW, respectively.
Our correspondent who monitored the situation on Friday gathered that Egbin Power, located in Ikorodu, is still down.
EnergyDay gathered that the last power generated by the Egbin plant was 680MW as at 9am on Monday, December 18, 2023, and it dropped to 0MW around 10a.m on the same day.
The plant has not been able to generate any bulk electricity to the grid since Monday until Saturday, December 23, 2023, when this report was released.
Ndidi Mbah, the General Manager of Public Affairs at the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), did not respond to an inquiry by EnergyDay regarding the update on the progress of the maintenance and an estimated timeline for when the Egbin power plant is expected to resume its operations.
