By Abiola Olawale
Following increasing demands for his sack, the Minister for Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has taken decisive action by ordering the prompt replacement of outdated equipment in the power sector.
The Minister said the directive is part of a broader strategy aimed at addressing the persistent issues leading to the frequent failures of the national grid.
The New Diplomat reports that Adelabu also instructed the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and all other relevant agencies of the ministry to immediately implement recommendations of the inter-agency committee, set up to address the incessant grid collapses in the power sector.
It would be recalled that following the persistent national grid collapse, Adelabu constituted a committee to address the issues.
In a press statement issued by the Special Adviser to the Minister on Strategic Communications and Media, Bolaji Tunji, Adelabu stated that the committee submitted its reports on Wednesday, November 6, 2024.
The statement reads in part: “The recommendations of the committee are far-reaching and will proffer lasting solutions to the incessant power grid collapses that we have embarrassingly witnessed in the country in the immediate and long term.”
The committee’s recent report explains that the national power grid has faced frequent collapses in recent months due to several key issues. These include a lack of regular maintenance and the use of old and inadequate equipment.
The committee also provided recommendations to fix these problems. They outlined actions that can be taken in one month, six months, and one year.
The short-term (one month) recommendations include; a review of relaying philosophy and settings, particularly at critical nodes, capacity development for maintenance/System Operation staff, Testing existing equipment at the critical nodes to establish reliability, developing framework and adopting reliability-centred maintenance and Identifying critical ongoing projects for speedy completion (low-hanging fruits).
The recommended objectives to be achieved in six months include strengthening relay coordination, replacement of aged and obsolete equipment, enhancing Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition and telecommunication tools, developing a framework to attract private investment across the value chain, deploying IoT devices on generating units and transmission lines, and secure firm gas contracts.
Other recommendations include developing and implementing measures to combat vandalization and energy theft, developing measures to reduce transmission loss factor and aggregate technical, commercial, and collection loss, human capacity development, Installation of harmonics filters by DisCo and GenCo customers, Decentralisation of TCN central store, enforcement of Free Governor Mode of Operation and the removal of ad-lash taped optic fiber.
In its one-year target, the committee recommended enhancing the distribution network and capacity, promoting decentralized grid management, implementing full SCADA and Telecommunication upgrades across the network, modernizing grid infrastructure (Smart Grid), promoting and adopting the use of the ringfenced network, Replaciof aged and obsolete equipment, integration of renewable energy resources, replacement of ad-lash taped with OPGW and intense human Capacity Development.
It would be recalled that this comes after the national grid collapsed on November 5, 2024.
Also, the grid collapsed three times in one week in October.
The national grid collapsed on October 17, 2024. Also, the national grid collapsed on October 15, 2024. This development came hours after the national grid had collapsed again on October 14, 2024.
Indeed, Nigeria was also plunged into darkness due to the grid failure on 6 July 2024.
Also, the country suffered another nationwide blackout on March 28. On April 14, the nation’s electricity grid experienced another system collapse. The national electricity grid, on February 4, collapsed for the first time in 2024.
