By Ayo Yusuf
As the federal government blamed yesterday’s power grid collapse which resulted in outages all over the country on a fire outbreak, Nigerians say they are tired of government excuses ten years after privatising the generation and distribution arms of the sector in 2013.
Thursday’s blackout left businesses and homes without power supply for several hours as power generation dropped by over 93 percent to a mere 273 mw for the entire country.
The federal government said the collapse was the result of a fire incident and an explosion on the Kainji/Jebba 330kV line 2.
The Minister of Power, Bayo Adelabu, who said this on his X (formerly Twitter) handle, disclosed that, “At 00:35Hrs this morning, Fire outbreak with explosion sound was observed on Kainji/Jebba 330KV Line 2 (Cct K2J) blue phase CVT & Blue phase line Isolator of Kainji/Jebba 330KV Line1 was observed burning.
“This led to sharp drops in frequency from 50.29Hz to 49.67 Hz at 0:35:06 Hrs with Jebba generation loss of 356.63MW.”
The latest collapse came barely two weeks after the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN celebrated 400 days of stable or incident-free operations.
The TCN which announced the commencement of grid restoration hours after the blackout said it was determined to discover the immediate cause of the fire outbreak.
A statement made by Ndidi Mbah, the General Manager of Public Affairs at TCN, said “Meanwhile, the collapse that occurred after a fire incident on Kanji/Jebba 330kV line 2 is being investigated, with the view to forestalling future occurrence and invariably further strengthening the grid.”
Part of the statement reads:
“The Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, hereby notes that grid restoration nationwide is in progress and has reached advanced stages with power supply now available in the West, North Central, South, East, and a large portion of the Country’s Northern parts.
“The power supply restoration is a sequel to the total grid collapse, which occurred at about 12.35 am this morning, causing outages nationwide after over 421 days of consistent grid stability.
“During the grid restoration, the process initially suffered a setback; this does not amount to another collapse. In the course of any grid restoration process, challenges may be encountered. This happened today while the grid restoration was in progress, but it was promptly addressed.
“It would be recalled that the last total system collapse recorded was on 20th July 2022, and since then, to 13th September 2023 (421 days). Before this, the system had been stable despite the challenges posed by zero spinning reserve and lack of System Control and adequate Data Acquisition (SCADA) essential to a strong and stable grid, among others.
“TCN has been able to maintain 400 days of grid stability because it developed and deployed in-house stop-gap measures and tools that it has continued to use to manage the nation’s grid, ensuring its stability.
“TCN is determined to continue to do its best to ensure grid stability,” the statement said.
However consumers and experts alike have been unimpressed by these explanations despite the enormous amount of money expended on trying to make power available to Nigerians in the last few years.
In his reaction, the President, Nigeria Consumer Protection Network, Kunle Kola Olubiyo, said incidents of grid collapses would continue in the country until the real causes were addressed.
“As long as we refuse to address the fundamental root causes of the system’s collapses, system distortions, system instability and related concerns, the problem will persist,’’ he said.
He berated the recent claim by TCN that it achieved grid stability for over 400 days which he described as a “flash in the pan”, adding that it came “at a time when there was low generation, low load dispatch and low energy utilisation.
“If we peak load at 5,800MW or say 6,000MW and sustained load at 6,000MW, the grid will collapse. It might not be out of place to describe the feat as a fluke.’’
TheNewDiplomat reports that under former President Muhammadu Buhari alone Nigeria secured about $7.5 billion in loans to improve transmission infrastructure and halt the frequent collapse of the national grid.
The loans came from the World Bank, African Development Bank, the government of Japan, and the Islamic Development Bank among others.
Another $486 million loan was advanced by the World Bank under the Nigeria Electricity Transmission Project, NETAP, while another $2.5 billion was taken to finance the Siemens deal targeted at improving the transmission network.
Moreover, Japan had in addition granted a $242.4 million loan to Nigeria for the implementation of the Lagos and Ogun Power Transmission System Improvement Project.
In 2017, the House of Representatives disclosed that foreign loan to the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, totalled $1.5bn, with a separate $500 million loan being negotiated with the Islamic Development Bank.
In 2022 the bank eventually approved a total financing of $1.8 billion for Nigeria, with the electricity loan expected to be a part of it.
Mrs Zainab Ahmed, who was the Minister of Finance at the time had in 2020, disclosed that the federal government requested a $3 billion World Bank loan to finance the transmission network. The fund was provided in four tranches of $750 million each.
The African Development Bank, AfDB, earlier in 2019, approved a $210 million loan for upgrade of the electricity transmission and distribution network.
Most of these monies are loans which had contributed to the current debt profile of the country and the fact that the government continues to expend money after privatizing the sector has been a source of complaint by many Nigerians.
Experts are however concerned that as long as Nigeria continues to operate the sector with a moribund system, power supply will not be stable in the country.
The Executive Director, Networks, Niger Delta Power Holding Company, Engr. Ifeoluwa Oyedele, who spoke over yesterday’s system collapse said it had become critical for the sector to acquire the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, SCADA, system.
Oyedele said: “The national grid is too large geographically. A SCADA System is an absolute must for the efficient operation of the transmission network. For the SCADA to function seamlessly, it must not be encumbered for any other purpose as this may further complicate the SCADA project.
“There is an urgent need to improve the distribution networks which are decayed and contribute significantly to system collapse.”
Also reacting, an electricity market analyst, Mr. Lanre Elatuyi, noted that system imbalance happens when generation and consumption were not matched in real time, which results in frequency going beyond the threshold allowed.
He explained that because the grid also relied mainly on a small group of power plants, any drop in generation output by any of the plants could trigger grid collapse.
On call by some operators for the national grid to be broken into regional grids, he pointed out that the regional grid system was not the solution to the problem.
According to him, “It is not a question of national or regional grids. Many countries, including Great Britain, have a national grid but they don’t have the problem we are facing.
“Our grid can barely transmit 4,000MW consistently. It has a length of about 20,000Km. It is a small grid. We need strict adherence to the grid code.
“There are technical reasons our grid is collapsing and we need to find out and sort it out. The way the grid operates is that at every time, generation must be equal to consumption. In real time, it must be balanced and that is where ancillary services come in.
“Ancillary services are those the system operator can call on, including the spinning reserve. We must have a synchronized plan that ensures that when a plant goes down, another one can be called up immediately by the system operator”.
Yesterday’s grid collapse has also instigated renewed calls for the adoption of renewable energy. The Managing Director/CEO of Geotechnics Services Limited, Dr. Adesina Adedeji, said the efforts of the government and its agencies are insufficient to generate, transmit, distribute and supply adequate power on a sustainable basis.
According to Dr. Adedeji,, “Globally, many households, organisations and governments are currently focusing attention on renewables because of the clean energy it provides. It is also targeted at achieving and sustaining a cleaner environment.
“Take Germany for example, it produced about 26,000 Megawatts from Solar as of 2006, whereas Nigeria cannot say exactly what it produces.
“Everything is lip service. Until the Federal Government comes up with a guided programme of funding and implementing mixed energy, it will be a tall dream to achieve the required megawatts, whereas it is not rocket science.
“The government only needs to put in place people with adequate knowledge and expertise like the saying ‘putting a square peg in a square hole.’
“Therefore, ensuring universal access to affordable electricity by 2030 means investing in clean energy sources such as solar, wind and thermal. Renewables have the capacity to accelerate growth without a negative impact on the environment.
“It also has the capacity to impact and improve the nation’s power sector and economy through expansion of the infrastructure.”
