Why grid collapse persists in Nigeria - TCN explains

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has explained why the national electricity grid has collapsed persistently.

According to the TCN, Nigeria's power sector is now faced with several challenges, affecting service delivery and the ongoing collapse of the electricity grid.

The executive director of the Independent System Operator (ISO) department of the TCN, Nafisat Ali said this while visiting the Senate Committee on Power on Monday, April 22, 2024.

Ms Ali stated that Nigeria had recorded 105 cases of grid collapse from 2015 to April 2024, noting that the cause of the ongoing grid collapse spread across the electricity value chain.

“The causes of grid collapse in Nigeria spread across all participants, from generation companies to transmission and distribution.

"From generation companies, there is the inadequacy of gas supply, improper coordination of plants and gas pipelines, poor generation availability,” she said.

For the distribution companies (DisCos), Ms Ali listed the weak distribution networks, load allocation violation, and lack of visibility on the DisCos network, among others, as the reasons for the unending collapse.

“Customers can experience interruptions to their electricity Supply for three reasons such as reliability issues, where there is insufficient generation to meet consumer demand at a place and point in time; system security events and problems with the security of the network and transmission/ distribution network failures.

“There should be adequate investment in all types of capacity, as well as appropriate operational decisions so that supply and demand are in balance at any point in time

“To achieve a reliable power system, it is necessary to include a buffer in the supply and demand balance, known as reserves. This allows the actual demand and supply to be kept in balance, even in the face of shocks to the system,” she stated.

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