FG Summons TCN, NERC to Emergency Meeting over Incessant Electricity Grid Collapse

*Sets up committee to address challenges 

*Again, parts of north thrown into darkness over equipment failure

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

The Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu has summoned the leadership of  the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to an emergency meeting over recent electricity grid disturbances and outright collapses.
The grid has experienced up to eight separate cases of disturbances this year alone, a development that threw the country into darkness.
But the minister’s spokesman, Bolaji Tunji, in a statement yesterday stressed that the minister expressed displeasure at the incidents, which he said, was capable of rubbishing the improvements made in the last one year.

According to the minister, the improvement has led to an increased generation and distribution of 5,527 megawatts, a record generation in three years.

“Adelabu also constituted a forensic investigation committee  with a mandate to advise the government on necessary solutions to make the national grid robust and reliable in addition to the ongoing efforts of the government like the Presidential Power Initiatives (PPI) and the Nigeria Electricity Transmission Project (NETAP).

“The committee is to also establish the root cause of both incidents especially a review of potential sabotage on the system. The committee will holistically review the national grid stability and identify investments and technical capacities required to make the grid smart and resilient,” he stated.

In addition, a technical team, the statement said, has been deployed to access the critical nodes on the national grid to identify potential vulnerabilities and proffer recommendations to address the vulnerabilities to prevent future disruptions to the  grid.
Adelabu recalled that on October 14, there was a partial collapse  due to the  tripping of a line at the Jebba Transmission Substation and recurring fault at the Osogbo transmission substation.

Efforts to restore the grid, he said,  further resulted in a  setback the following day. The System was however fully restored on Wednesday,  October 16, 2024, Adelabu added.

He added that there was no grid collapse on Tuesday as was widely speculated, arguing that  the setback was a continuation of Monday’s restoration efforts on the grid.

Also, he said that what was described on  Saturday, October 19, as grid collapse was  a deliberate protective shutdown of the grid as a result of the explosion of the Jebba transformer, noting that power was restored within two hours. “ What we had were more of grid disturbances than collapses,” he explained.

The six-member committee comprises; Nafisat Ali, Executive Director, Independent System Operator (ISO), who leads the committee; Dr. Chidi Ike, Commissioner, NERC; Emmanuel Nosike, Director,  Transmission, Federal Ministry of Power; Ali Sharifai, General Manager, Transmission Service Provider (TSP) and Mr. Adedayo Olowoniyi, Chief Technical Adviser to the Minister of Power.

The team is expected to present a report to the minister by November 1,  2024, the statement added.      

                         
Also, the TCN has reported that its 330kV Ugwaji–Apir double circuit transmission lines1&2, has tripped due to a fault, resulting in a forced power outage affecting the North-east, North-west and parts of North-central.

It stated that at approximately 4:53am yesterday, the Ugwuaji–Markurdi 330kV line 2 tripped and 243 MW on that line was transferred to line 1 on the same route.

“At 4:58am, Line 1 also tripped, resulting in a total loss of 468 MW. By around 5:15am and 5:17am line 1 and line 2 were tried, but they all tripped immediately on the same relay indication.

“Following the tripping incidents yesterday, two teams of linesmen were dispatched. One from the Apir transmission sub-region and another from the Enugu transmission to expedite fault tracing along the 215 km route, which includes 245 transmission towers.

“Throughout yesterday, the Apir team patrolled the line, navigating challenging terrains in search of the fault, reaching as far as the River Benue. They were unable to locate the cause of the tripping and have continued in the fault tracing early this morning (Tuesday).

The lines patrol team from Enugu Region of TCN, a statement signed by the spokesperson of the company, Ndidi Mbah, said were unable to commence lines patrol yesterday due to the ‘sit-at-home’ directive in the South-east for October 21st and 22nd, 2024.

It explained that this hindered not only the patrol team but also made it difficult to refuel patrol vehicles for the long distance line trace.
“Arrangements were, however, made for security operatives to guide the team, who have commenced fault tracing this morning. Currently, TCN has restored supply to the 132kV transmission line from New Haven to Apir, but the 330kV lines remain out of service, impacting power supply in the Northern region of the country.

“Sadly, the TCN Shiroro-Mando transmission line is also down due to security reasons, causing power outage in the North,” the company stated.

The TCN said it was making every effort to trace the cause of the outage to enable its engineers effect repairs and restore bulk power supply through both lines.

“We sincerely apologise to the government and electricity consumers in all the affected states and acknowledge that our patrol teams would have continued their search into the night yesterday, if not for the challenging terrain, which includes swamps and rivers, as well as insecure areas in the forest.

“ We reconvened very early this morning (yesterday) with security operatives and have continued the fault tracing to locate and address the cause of the line tripping,” the TCN said.

Meanwhile, a consumer advocacy group, the Nigeria Consumer Protection Network (NCPN), led by Kunle Olubiyo, has called on President Bola Tinubu to immediately declare a state of emergency on the power sector.

“President Bola Tinubu should as a matter of urgent national interest and public importance review the power sector privatisation exercise for the evidently pronounced failure,” Olubiyo stated.