Blackout As Nigeria’s National Grid Collapses

Nigeria’s electricity grid system suffered another collapse Sunday around 11 am plunging some parts of the country into darkness.

Eko Electricity Distribution Company confirmed the collapse of the national grid collapse on Sunday via its Twitter handle.

It explained that the current power outage was due to a system collapse on the national grid.

The company, however, assured Nigerians that electricity supply would be restored as soon as possible.

Dear customer,
The outage you’re experiencing is due to a system collapse on the National Grid.
We are working with our TCN partners to restore supply as soon as possible.
Please bear with us #PowerUpdate #EkoElectricity #EmpoweringQualityOfLives

— Eko Electricity Distribution Company (@EKEDP) November 29, 2020

Nigeria suffers from constant power outages with most people unlikely to even notice this system collapse. The country has 12,500 MW of installed generation capacity, being largely dependent on hydropower and fossil (gas) thermal power sources; 12.5% and 87.5% respectively. Although it is important to note that currently only 3,500 MW to 5,000 MW is typically available for onward transmission to the final consumer.

This scenario made the country’s energy sector to be deemed as being in crisis, with the extensive losses attributable to non-availability of the installed capacity and a very high occurrence of significant technical and non-technical issues through the power supply value chain. The supplied electricity is delivered to Nigerians connected to the grid, though these customers suffer from extensive power outages a situation that results in annual consumption of electricity per capita being amongst the lowest in Africa, estimated at less than 150 kWh. Against this backdrop, a significant number of businesses operating in the country possess standby generators, statistics on this captive generation capacity are not readily available however estimates are as high as 14-20 GW.

In 2013, the Nigerian government completed an extensive nine year-long process of power sector reforms centered on the privatization of the country’s main generation and distribution assets. In addition, to tackle the supply and distribution crisis, fifteen (15) government-owned generation and distribution companies were sold to private owners in 2015.