Blackout persists in most parts of Nigeria despite restoration of collapsed grid
Blackouts have persisted in most parts of the country even as the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) said it has effected full restoration of the national grid after transmission system collapse attributed to a fire incident at the Afam power generating station.
According to TCN after hours of blackouts due to the grid collapse for the sixth time in 2024, “at 02:41Hrs today, 15th April 2024, a fire erupted at the Afam V 330kV bus bar coupler, leading to the tripping of units at Afam III and Afam VI. This resulted in a sudden generation loss of 25MW and 305MW respectively, destabilizing the grid and causing a partial collapse.
“During the incident, the Ibom Power plant was isolated from the grid and was supplying parts of the Port Harcourt Region. This further minimized the effect of the system disturbance. TCN confirms that the affected section of the grid has been fully restored and stabilized.”
TCN in a statement by the General Manager Public Affairs, Mrs Ndidi Mbah, however reaffirmed the company’s commitment to enhancing the resilience and reliability of the national grid and pledges to continue investing in measures aimed at strengthening the grid infrastructure.
Recall that about 75 percent of the nation’s power generation comes from thermal generation companies that are making use of gas, that is gas dependent generators while only about 35 percent comes from the hydro.
The cost of gas given the prevailing exchange rate, and the illiquidity of the value chain makes it virtually impossible for most generation companies to pay for gas to enable them operate at full capacity.
Consequently, most gas powered electricity generating companies are redundant for lack of funds to pay for gas just as there are outstanding backlogs of debts owed to the GenCos for power already generated and distributed by Distribution Companies.
The NERC Vice Chairman, Dr. Musiliu O. Oseni, had at a briefing with Newsmen explained recently that going by these, it reflects in the chain of cost of operations, citing that gas that could have been bought by GenCos for N900, has gone up to N2000 just because of Foreign Exchange Rate.
Dr. Oseni further said: “Because the tariff payable by customers has changed, this really affected the payments to the GenCos and that led to the situation that the GenCos were also unable to make payments for gas and that resulted to reduction of gas supply to the power sector because there is competitive demand for gas now.”
