Experts in the power sector have decried the recurring grid collapses in Nigeria.
They noted that the anomaly is exerting negative impacts on the socio-economic, industrial and business growth in the country.
Speaking in separate interviews with Saturday Telegraph on Thursday, they also proffered solutions to the challenge.
The experts are Chief Executive Officer, Egbin Power PLC, Mr Mokhtar Bounour; Executive Secretary, Association of Local Distributors of Gas, Mr Oga Adejo-Ogiri and Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Transcorp Energy Ltd, Mr Christopher Ezeafulukwe.
Chief Executive Officer of Heirs Energies Limited, Osayande Igiehon, said energy is a key component of development and canvassed that Nigeria gets its energy right.
Bounour said: “In many countries, you never hear about grid collapse. Never! It is sad that it is being witnessed in Nigeria. It is a challenge that can be turned into an opportunity. It is affecting economic and industrial development.
“To stop grid collapses, you have to invest in the three sectors: power generation, distribution and transmission at the same time and the same level and bring more technology so that the three sectors will go out of this grid collapse.”
Adejo-Ogiri said: “To stop grid collapse, apart from investing further in the grid, it is time for us to decentralize the grid. What happens now is that once there is failure in one part of the grid, the entire country shuts down. So we need to decentralize the grid so that we have a stand-alone grid, maybe on a regional basis.
“Then we can interconnect those regional grids because there are certain times when certain areas may have a lot more power sources than others. But that creates some resilience. It is high time we have a decentralized grid. We can not have one grid for the entire country.”
Ezeafulukwe said: “It speaks to infrastructure. For each grid collapse, the system operator is supposed to carry out an investigation and find out what caused it. When they come out with what caused it, then it needs to be addressed.
“There are so many reasons that can be responsible for the grid collapse. It could be from the generation end, distribution end and transmission end. It depends on what caused it but the fact remains that it is an aberration.
“The frequency of grid collapse we have had in the country is not what it should be, whether it is grid collapse or grid disturbance, whatever it is, the impact is that Nigerians do not have a power supply even within the limited capacity we have for an elongated period because these events happen on the nation grid.”
Igiehon said: “Gas in our energy ecosystem is going to be very important. Energy is a key component of development. So if we do not get our energy right, we will not get our overall development right. So getting energy is critical.
“There are lots of estimates but almost everybody agrees that more than 50 per cent of our people do not have full access to energy. That challenge is going to grow with time because our population will grow and we also need to provide energy for them. Energy spans everything. It is for domestic use, business use, industrial use, and recreational use. It is one of the key pillars of modern development and we have to get it right.”
Nigeria has witnessed many national grid collapses in 2024. The grid collapses include those on February 4, March 28, April 15 and July 6 and most recently on October 14. Also on October 15, just some hours after service was restored, there was another grid collapse.
Electricity distribution companies (DisCos) in notices to their customers confirmed the collapse around 9 am on October 15.
Ikeja DisCo said: “Please be informed that we experienced another system outage today 15/10/24 @ 09:17hrs affecting supply within our network.
Also, Eko DisCo said: “Dear Valued Customer, Kindly be informed there was a system collapse at 09:17hrs which has resulted in a loss of power supply across our network.”
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) in a statement by its spokesperson, Ndidi Mbah, on May 1, 2024; had given records of grid collapses in the country
She said: “Clearly, between 2020 to date (five years), we recorded fourteen total and six partial grid disturbances totalling twenty (20), which represents a 76.47% reduction in grid disturbance, when compared to the previous five years, (2015 to 2019) where we had sixty-four total and twenty-one partial grid disturbances, totalling eighty-five (85) times.”