Nigeria faced a widespread blackout on Saturday as the national electricity grid crashed to a mere 70.60 megawatts around 4 pm. This marks the seventh collapse of the grid in 2024, following previous failures on February 4, April 10, April 15, March 11, March 12, and March 28.
During a meeting on Thursday, President Bola Tinubu criticized the country’s low electricity generation. At the inauguration of the 31-member Presidential Economic Coordination Council at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, Tinubu described the situation as “shameful.”
“We have the challenge of energy security in Nigeria. We need to work together to improve our oil and gas sector, and we must also increase electricity generation and distribution throughout the country. We are determined to do that with your cooperation, collaboration, and recommendations. As a nation, it is so shameful that we are still generating 4.5GW of electricity,” Tinubu stated.
Data from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) showed that power generation had briefly increased from 3,788.63MW to 3,976.24MW around 10 am but plummeted to 1,075.08MW by 3 pm, and eventually to 70.60MW by 4 pm. At this low point, only the Trans-Amadi Gas Turbine Power Plant in Rivers State was supplying power to the grid, producing a mere 0.80MW. Efforts by TCN engineers saw a slight improvement, with power generation rising to 72.30MW by 5 pm.
The Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) confirmed the grid collapse, stating that all its interfaces in the TCN stations were out of supply. This left customers in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo states without power.
“The Enugu Electricity Distribution Company wishes to inform its esteemed customers of a general system collapse which occurred at 15:09 hours today, July 6, 2024. This has resulted in the loss of supply currently being experienced across the network. Due to this development, all our interface TCN stations are out of supply, and we are unable to provide services to our customers in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo states. We are on standby awaiting detailed information on the collapse and restoration of supply from the National Control Centre, Osogbo,” stated Emeka Ezeh, Head of Corporate Communications at EEDC.
The Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company and the Kano DisCo also reported power outages due to the grid collapse. “We regret to inform you that the power outage being experienced in our franchise states is due to the system collapse of the national grid,” tweeted the Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company. Similarly, Kano DisCo informed its customers of the situation and assured them that power supply would be restored as soon as the grid was back online.
Ikeja DisCo issued a statement titled “Notice of System Collapse,” appealing for patience from its customers. “The current service disruption is due to a system collapse of the national grid at about 15:08 hours today. We are in collaboration with relevant stakeholders within the power value chain to ensure speedy restoration of supply,” the statement read.
As of 6 pm on Saturday, data from the TCN Discos load profile site indicated that all eight Discos had a 0.00MW load allocation, underscoring the severity of the grid collapse and its impact on the nation’s electricity supply.
