About 19 hours after Sunday’s system collapse, the Nigerian national grid is yet to recover to its previous level of 3,700 megawatts (MW) as less than 12 power plants had fluctuated power generation on Monday afternoon.

Although the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) was battling to manage the grid, stakeholders in the power sector are yet to be briefed on the immediate cause of the system collapse, which was the fourth this year.

The system collapse incident of Sunday lasted for about three hours, from 6:45pm to around 10pm, when power consumers began confirming restoration of supply in parts of Lagos and Abuja as of 12am.

Daily Trust reports that system collapse occurrences have dropped since 2021 with four recorded then and four so far this year. This has been a relief from the over 20 incidents in the past, but there are fears that if the situation is not managed, the incidents may climb higher this year.   

Records from the Independent System Operator (ISO), a segment of TCN on Monday, indicated that the grid had 1,700MW of electricity as of 10am which then rose to slightly over 2,000MW by 11am. However, by 1pm, the grid, which was recovering, plunged further to 512MW as several Generation Companies (GenCos) went off the system.

In another apparent sign of a near system collapse, the grid had just 88MW of electricity from Jebba hydro as of 1pm acting as a spinning reserve to keep the grid on, with many residents confirming power outages in Abuja, Nasarawa and Niger environs.

The Distribution Companies (DisCos) were expected to get 2,377.14MW of electricity but could not due to the system disturbance.

A senior official of TCN, said engineers are busy managing the situation, noting that the power generation level had reached 1,834MW as of 3pm on Monday from 11 power plants, and dropped to 1035MW from eight power plants, one hour later.

“This kind of fluctuation is expected but the engineers are managing the situation until more power plants are fully dispatched to the grid,” noted the official.

Daily Trust