The national electricity grid witnessed a partial collapse on Monday throwing some parts of the country into darkness.
The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company said that the development, which had an impact on its consumers on Monday afternoon, was a technical failure, according to The Punch.
The AEDC announced in the evening that some of its customers were still without electricity.
“We understand that some of our customers are still without power due to a system failure from the national grid at 2.55 pm today, August 5, 2024. Please be assured that the system is gradually stabilising, and we are working diligently with all relevant stakeholders to restore power to the affected areas as quickly as possible,” the AEDC stated, thanking the customers for their patience and understanding.
The spokesperson of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, Ndidi Mbah, offered to provide more information about the incident when contacted. She hadn’t responded as of the time this report was filed.
Meanwhile, findings show that hourly power generation by the various plants fell from 3,749 megawatts at 2 pm to 3,241 MW and 1,255 MW at 3 pm. As of 11:00 am, it was 4,067MW.
According to findings, Egbin Power Plant which generated 222MW till 2 pm dropped to 0.00MW throughout the day.
While speaking in a recent interview with our correspondent, the Executive Director, Electricity Consumer Protection Advocacy Centre, Princewill Okorie, regretted that the grid keeps having issues despite the hike in electricity tariff.
Okorie bemoaned the fact that unmetered customers would still be required to pay for the period of the collapse, wondering what the government has been doing to stop the incidents.
“What are the causes of these grid failures or collapses? Are the materials used in building the grip of good quality and standard? Who is managing the grid? The players in the sector are more interested in collecting money from the consumers rather than making the system stable.
“What you hear more about the power sector is payment. The money that the international communities are bringing to the industry and the money that is unlawfully collected from the consumers, where are they being utilised? The operational expenditures of the Discos, and how do they spend them?
“In the past few months, they keep increasing tariffs yet the power sector is inefficient. They are interested in collecting money but whether the money is judiciously utilised or not, nobody cares. They keep overbilling customers. The desperation to collect revenue from customers for services not delivered is a challenge.”
