ALL AFRICA

The entire country was yesterday thrown into darkness after the national electricity grid suffered a system collapse, the second in 2022.

The incident which occurred at about 10:40 am affected states like all states of the federation as power transmission to the 11 distribution companies (DisCos) were cut off.

The development comes as Nigerians are experiencing epileptic power supply and a hike in fuel prices.

The grid is infamous for experiencing disruptions — it collapsed in February, May, July and August 2021.

This is as the minister of power, Engr. Abubakar Aliyu and major stakeholders in the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) engaged in a brainstorming session to find lasting solutions to the perennial power crisis in the meeting.

The meeting, which was ongoing at the time of filing this report, yesterday, had in attendance delegation from the Power Generation Companies, Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET), Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), NNPC, Shell among others.

According to the Minister, “This meeting was summoned to address the current electricity situation in the country which we see not happy about

“We must find a solution so that Nigerians will have electricity. I want us to have the patience to talk to each other, not blaming each other.”

He stated that the federal government will sustain effort towards ensuring improvements in the power sector adding that current challenges must be addressed.

LEADERSHIP checks reveal that the while the grid was restored at about 12:20 pm on Monday, DIsCos’ connection to the grid was done gradually, and as at press time, many areas were yet to be connected back.

While head, Corporate Communications, Ikeja Electric Plc, Mr Felix Ofulue, confirmed to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the grid was restored by 12:20 pm, chief marketing officer for AEDC, Donald Etim confirmed to LEADERSHIP that their systems were connected back to grid by installments.

Ofulue said: “there was a report of system collapse at about 10.40 a.m. and it was restored at 12.20 p.m.

“Our customers were affected but supply has now been restored.”

Earlier, DisCos had taken to their Twitter handles, text messages, WhatsApp among others to announce the development to their customers and apologized for the black outs.

AEDC, in a text message sent to its customers said,

“Dear Esteemed Customer, we experienced general outage across AEDC network at 10:40 am today due to a system collapse which occurred on the national grid. Appropriate measures are now being taken to restore normal supply as quickly as possible. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.”

The message by Eko DisCo also read, “Dear esteemed customer, a system collapse occurred on the national grid at 10:40 am today, leading to outages across our network. We are working on the situation with our TCN partners and will keep you updated.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused.”

The grid, which is being managed by the government-owned Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has continued to suffer system collapse over the years amid a lack of spinning reserve that is meant to forestall such occurrences.

Also, Kaduna Electricity, yesterday, while confirming the system collapse, assured its customers that power would soon be restored.

“We regret to inform you that the power outage being experienced in our franchise states is due to System Collapse of the National Grid which occurred at about 10:40 am,” the firm said, tendering apologies for any inconvenience.”

In its notice to customers, the Enugu Electricity Distribution PLC said that the system collapse affected supply in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States.

The notice signed by EEDC head, corporate Communications, Emeka Ezeh, read, “The Enugu Electricity Distribution PLC (EEDC) wishes to inform her esteemed customers in the South East of a general system collapse which occurred this morning, Monday, 14th March 2022 at 10:40 am.

“This is the reason for the loss of supply currently being experienced across the network.”Consequently, all our outgoing feeders are out and supply to our customers in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States are affected by this development.”