NIGERIA’S government has attributed power outage across the country to the breakdown of eight power generation plants.
This was stated in series of tweets by Minister of Power Saleh Mamman on Thursday.
While adding that seven other plants were battling with low gas shortages, Mamman apologised for the difficulties the situation had brought to Nigerians.
“I sincerely regret the recent Power outages across the Nation and the difficulties it has brought with it, and wish to assure my Fellow Nigerians that everyone involved is working assiduously to restore the National grid to its previous historical levels and exceed that,” he said.
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“The problem is caused by the breakdown of some National Integrated Power Plants supplying electricity to the national grid. The plants are namely, Sapele, Afam, Olonrunsogo, Omotosho, Ibom, Egbin, Alaoji and Ihovbor. The Jebba Power Plant was shut down for annual maintenance.
“Seven other integrated Power plants, namely Geregu, Sepele, Omotosho, Gbarain, Omuku, Paras and Alaoji are experiencing gas constraints while the Shiroro hydroelectric power plant has water management issues. This unfortunate development has drastically affected Power generation, thus effectively minimizing the national grid.”
While stating that hands were on deck to address the situation, the minister further assured that the national grid would be restored to its previous historic distribution peak of about 5,600MW of electricity achieved early this year, so as to relieve Nigerians of the current harsh climatic conditions and restore full economic activities.
Africa’s most populous nation relies on hydro for electricity supply. However, many countries have moved on with energy mix, exploring other energy sources to achieve regular electricity.
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