Breaking: Nigerians in darkness as national grid collapses three times in one week

NIGERIANS have been thrown into darkness as the national grid collapses three times in one week.

The grid collapse occurred early Saturday morning, with no responses from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which is the body that should provide updates on such emergencies in the power sector.

Only Ikeja and Ibadan have 30 megawatts (MW) each.

Data obtained from the Nigerian System Operator’s portal showed that the grid recorded zero megawatts (MW) as of 8:20 am on Saturday. All 22 generation companies (GenCos) were down as of the time of filing this report.

This is the third time the national grid will report collapse in just one week. It is the eighth grid collapse in 2024, highlighting the challenges faced by Nigerians due to lack of energy diversification.

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Nigeria’s national power grid collapsed 46 times between 2017 and 2023, according to the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday.

“Although the country has a total installed capacity of about 13 GW, average available capacity remained around 4.5 GW in 2023 due to a combination of factors such as deteriorating units, poor maintenance and liquidity constraints,” the IEA said.

“Unreliable power supply due to limited grid infrastructure, underinvestment and ineffective regulatory frameworks have resulted in an estimated 40 per cent of all the electricity consumed in the country being produced from backup generators,” IEA declared,” it added.