Nigeria’s power grid suffered a total collapse twice on Saturday within four hours which put consumers in total blackout.
The power grid, which is controlled by government-owned Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), has continued to suffer system collapse over the years due to lack of spinning reserve that is meant to prevent such occurrences.
Eko Electricity Distribution Plc, one of the nation’s distribution companies, revealed that the grid collapsed at 11:15 pm on Friday and 3:15 am on Saturday.
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“At 2315 hrs, we experienced a system collapse across all transmission stations. Supply was received at 0315hrs. Sadly, at 0438hrs, the system collapsed again. TCN and our team are working to restore supply. Kindly bear with us,” the Disco said on its Twitter handle.
Power Update:
At 2315hrs, we experienced a system collapse across all transmission stations. Supply was received at 0315hrs. Sadly, at 0438hrs, the system collapsed again. TCN & our team are working to restore supply.
Kindly bear with us.— Eko Electricity Distribution Company (@EKEDP) November 9, 2019
The Jos Electricity Distribution Plc, JEDC, also announced to its customers that “there is a power outage in all our franchise states due to system collapse nationwide.
“We will provide an update shortly. Thank you for bearing with us,” it said on Twitter.
Esteemed customers, there is power outage in all our franchise states due to system collapse nationwide. We will provide an update shortly. Thank you for bearing with us.
— Jos Electricity Distribution (JED) PLC (@josdisco) November 9, 2019
An investigation carried out by Daily Trust showed that between 2010 and 2019, electricity consumers in Nigeria have had to cope with 206 power grid collapse, nine of which occurred in 2019 according to its records.
A breakdown of the figures also indicated that the grid collapses which led to power failure for a whole region or even the entire country showed that 109 of the incidents occurred from 2010 to 2013 while 97 others were recorded from 2014 to 2019.
Amos Abba is a journalist with the International Center for Investigative Reporting, ICIR, who believes that courageous investigative reporting is the key to social justice and accountability in the society.