By John Ikani
Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Aliyu Abubakar, on Saturday, disclosed that collapse of the national grid on Friday was caused by “vandalism” of the transmission tower between Akwa Ibom and Cross River states, leading to a loss of about 400MW of generation.
This was disclosed in a statement signed by the Minister’s Special Adviser On Media, Isa Sanusi.
What the Nigerian Government is saying
According to the Minister: “The immediate cause of national blackout (system collapse) was an act of vandalism on a transmission tower on the Odukpani—Ikot Ekpene 330kV double circuit transmission line thus resulting in a sudden loss of about 400MW of generation.”
While noting that a detailed investigation into the immediate and remote causes of the recurring grid failure is currently ongoing by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission and System Operator (the operator of the national grid), the Minister added that other on-grid power plants are being dispatched to cover the lost generation capacity from the Calabar power plant owned by Niger Power Holding Company Ltd.
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Heritage Times had earlier reported that the latest collapse – which is the fifth this year – happened at about 6:30 pm on Friday and crashed again at about 8:30 pm.
The grid has collapsed more than 130 times since 2013 when the electricity sector was privatised.
Although the Federal Government-owned Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which manages the grid, had at some point said grid collapse happen globally, the collapse of the power supply, each time it occurs, comes with a huge economic loss for consumers, especially commercial entities.
