The Minister of Power, Sale Mamman, on Thursday, apologized over power outage in various parts of the country.
According to him, outages are due to the breakdown of eight National Integrated Power Plants supplying electricity to the national grid.
The plants, he said, are Sapele, Afam, Olonrunsogo, Omotosho, Ibom, Egbin, Alaoji and Ihovbor, adding that seven other thermal plants are battling with low gas shortages.
According to Mamman, “everyone involved is working assiduously to restore the National grid to its pervious historical levels, ” adding that the Jebba plant is currently under an annual maintenance.
The tweet reads, “I sincerely regret the recent power outages across the Nation and the difficulties it has brought with it, and wish to assure my fellow Nigerians that everyone involved is working assiduously to restore the National grid to its previous historical levels and exceed that.
“The problem is caused by the breakdown of some National Integrated Power Plants supplying electricity to the national grid. The plants are namely, Sapele, Afam, Olonrunsogo, Omotosho, Ibom, Egbin, Alaoji and Ihovbor. The Jebba Power Plant was shut down for annual maintenance.
“Seven other integrated power plants, namely Geregu, Sepele, Omotosho, Gbarain, Omuku, Paras and Alaoji are experiencing gas constraints while the Shiroro hydroelectric power plant has water management issues.”
A report by the National Electricity Regulator Commission(NERC), says Sapele Power plant has an installed generation capacity of 504Mw but generates an average of 69Mw; Afam power plant has an installed capacity of 685Mw but generates an average of 455Mw.
Overall, says the report, Nigeria power plants have an installed capacity of 12,500 Mw, however, only 3,500 to 5,000 Mw is available for transmission.
According to a report of the Transmission Company of Nigeria in March, Nigeria recorded peak generation of 5,801 Mw.
