Again, Nigeria’s Power Grid Collapses

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

Nigeria’s problematic electricity grid collapsed again in the early hours of Wednesday, leaving almost all parts of the country in darkness.

Although the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) had yet to make any official comment on the national outage, the national grid was still down at the time of putting this report together.

According to available data, as of 8:37 this morning, the total power allocation to the 11 electricity distribution companies (Discos) by the 26 generation companies (Gencos) had slumped to zero megawatts.

The development is coming weeks after the TCN, a wholly government-owned entity, celebrated what it termed ‘400 days’ without any disruption to the national grid.

Nigeria depends on just between 3,500mw and 4,500mw for its over 200 million population, making it one of the least electrified countries in the world.