National electricity grid crashed on Wednesday afternoon, significantly reducing bulk power available for distribution across the 11 Distribution Companies (DisCos).

The collapse is coming a day after the national grid rose to 5,114 megawatts (MW) which it had not reached for over two months.

Although this was the first collapse recorded this month, there were at least two major collapse in April, with one reducing the grid to 180MW. As at Wednesday morning, the grid was 4,212MW before the collapse occurred.

Reacting to this, a statement from spokesman of Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), Mr Oyebode Fadipe said the grid challenge reduced its allocation to 20MW.

“In the circumstance, we are unable to service our customers. We apologise for the inconvenience this may be causing our customers,” it told customers across Kogi, Abuja, Nasarawa and Niger States.

Equally, Kaduna Electric said the collapse of the national grid interrupted power supply in Kaduna, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara states where it operates.

Its head of Corporate Communication, Mr Abdulazeez Abdullahi in a statement said, “At about 2:33PM today (yesterday) 8 May 2019 the national grid suffered system collapse.

Consequently, power supply to all our franchise states was interrupted.”

“Normal supply shall be restored as soon as the grid is back up. We regret any inconvenience this may cause all our customers,” it added.

Daily Trust