By Udeme Akpan & Obas Esiedesa

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, has called a stakeholders meeting to unravel the reasons behind the collapse of the Nigerian power grid thrice in the past one week.

The collapse left the country without public power supply for several hours.

The national grid had collapsed twice last Monday, and again on Saturday, putting the federal government’s plan to attain 6,000MW by the end of the year in jeopardy. 

Checks by Vanguard on national grid data showed that DisCos load allocation was 4,031MW as of 3:25 p.m., Saturday.

A breakdown indicated that Abuja DisCo received 650 MW; Benin DisCo, 339 MW; Eko DisCo 531 MW; Enugu DisCo 322 MW; Ibadan DisCo 498 MW; Ikeja DisCo 623 MW; Jos DisCo 245 MW; 

Kaduna DisCo 200 MW; Kano DisCo 200 MW; Port Harcourt DisCo, 301 MW; and Yola DisCo, 121 MW.

NERC in a statement posted on its official X account yesterday,  stated: “In line with Section 48, subsection 1 of the Electricity Act 2023 (Amended), the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, is mandated to conduct public hearings on critical issues relating to the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry, NESI.

“The commission has noted with concern the recent escalating incidence of grid disturbances, often leading to marked outage in several states, thus reversing many of the gains recently achieved in reducing infrastructure deficit and improving grid stability.

“In this regard, the commission hereby invites NESI stakeholders, civil society organisations, and the general public to a hearing which is scheduled as follows on Thursday, October 24, 2024.’’

Speaking to Vanguard, the Chairman, Association for Public Policy Analysis, Chief Princewill Okorie, said the government needed to investigate the entire power sector value chain. 

He said: “Consumers have continued to pay for services not rendered, while the operators smile to the banks.” 

Similarly, the National President, Oil and Gas Services Providers Association of Nigeria, Mazi Colman Obasi, said: “I came back from the church to see that power was on. After a few hours, they took it. And they have not returned it. While I may encourage communication flow between the regulators and consumers, not much should be expected as some previous hearing did not yield much fruits.

“Besides, they can get better results using modern technologies to solicit information from consumers. If they have electronics control systems, they can easily know whose’s receiving and who is not receiving power. 

‘’What would the public hearing do about the collapse of the national of the grid or providing prepaid meters to consumers?”

However, the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, had blamed that latest collapse of the national grid on a transformer explosion at Jebba transmission substation.

TCN in a statement by the General Manager, Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah, explained that a report from the NCC (National Control Centre) showed that “the bus section of a current transformer exploded at 330kV Jebba Transmission Substation and as expected, the protection system was activated, and this promptly opened the busbars to curtail the explosion, thereby preventing outbreak of fire and further damage to adjacent equipment.

“The action of the protection system led to a temporary disturbance on the grid.  Our engineers at Jebba have successfully carried out switchings, isolating the faulty current transformer. 

‘’They have equally reconfigured the busbar arrangement, restoring power supply to the station and other parts of the grid.”

Vanguard News