Economic activities were again paralysed nationwide for several hours yesterday following the collapse of the national grid.
The collapse was the sixth this year and second this month.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) blamed the grid collapse on a fire outbreak at Afam power generating station in Oyigbo, Rivers State.
The incident that took more than 12 hours to fix, triggered a drop in generation from 629 megawatts (mw) to 64.70mw, leaving commercial and domestic users without power for hours before the grid in Osogbo, Osun State was fixed.
The Nation had reported yesterday that the grid might collapse due to pressure to meet the 20- hour electricity supply to users classified as ‘Band A’ customers.
In a statement by its spokesman, Ndidi Mbah, the TCN said: “At 02:41Hrs today (yesterday), fire erupted at the Afam V 330kV bus bar coupler, leading to the tripping off units at Afam III and Afam VI.
“This resulted in a sudden generation loss of 25mw and 305mw respectively, destabilising the grid and causing a partial collapse.
“During the incident, the Ibom Power plant was isolated from the grid and was supplying parts of the Port Harcourt region. This further minimised the effect of the system disturbance. TCN announced that the affected section of the grid had been fully restored and stabilised.”
The company reaffirmed its commitment to improving the “resilience and reliability” of the grid by paying attention to measures aimed at strengthening its infrastructure.
Afam IV power station and Afam V power station operated by First Independent Power Limited, are both owned by Transcorp Power Limited. Afam IV and Afam V have a combined generation capacity of 726 MW.
A document by the Independent System Operator (SO), the technical wing of the TCN, showed that 770mw were sent to 10 electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) as of 10:53am yesterday when the grid came alive again.
Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHEDC) got zero allocation. Others like Eko, Jos and Enugu assured their customers of improved power once the situation normalised.
Our customers get trapped in elevator, says Lagos Hotel manager
In Lagos, an hotel manager said that apart from the fact that erratic power supply damage their appliances, their customers were sometimes trapped inside the elevator.
He added that the hotel spends substantial amount of its income on generators.
David Nwosu, an event manager in a Lagos-based hotel said: “The unstable light has affected some of our appliances, and we have to keep replacing them. Our customers are also sometimes trapped in the elevator when the light goes off suddenly and before we switch to generator, though it takes about two minutes to switch.
“Unfortunately due to the current price of diesel, no one wants to operate fully on generator and we also won’t. We will keep managing until the situation improves.”
In Osun, the Charleston Foundation lamented that “poor supply has never been this bad since Nigeria’s independence in 1960.
It charged President Bola Tinubu to declare a state of emergency in the power sector.
The Foundation’s Executive Director (ED), Charles Adeyemi said: “The main fulcrum of Nigeria micro and macro economy are largely dependent on availability of power supply and when this is missing it is a risk for country’s economy.
“The current outages is an indication that all is not well. Small and medium size businesses are folding up every day. It is now difficult for hospitals, laboratories and school to perform optimally.”
Saheed Olarewaju, managing director of Fatty Fancy Arts, a leading printing company in Osogbo said: “Our company is on Band A, but unfortunately, we have been running generator to do most of our jobs.
“This is affecting how we charge our customers. If we subsidise price for them because of electricity, we end up using diesel to power our generator. You can imagine the negative implication on our company.”
Power plant shut down in PH
Consumers in Rivers did not care to know that the PHEDC got zero megawatt allocation. Residents, especially youths of Oro Abali, shut down a power plant in the community during a protest.
The residents complained that despite paying a lot on estimated billings and new tariffs, electricity had been epileptic in the area
The protesters, who carried placards with inscriptions such as “No fairness to host community,” said there had been no power in the area despite increase in tariff.
The Nation gathered that the shut plant is the next big power station after the Afam power plant.
Residents of Chinda Okabie/Isaiah/Lucky Street and the Ejiji community sent a protest letter to PHEDC through Bethel Chimzie and Associates, over poor electricity supply.
The letter reads: “We bring to your notice our dissatisfaction and complaints over low supplies, current fluctuation, lack of power supply and total blackout for months coupled with huge estimated bills piled on us due to no metering system within our vicinity, which has been concurrent over a few years.
“We are billed by PHEDC and compel to pay the bills even in blackout with a day or two of power supply in between for just an hour or less.
“Shops are closing down, tenants are relocating, business are crumbling as a result of no power to strive in their daily business activities. Residents are developing airborne diseases caused by heat which is taking a toll on children.”
Business operators, especially in the hospitality industry and hair dressing/barbing salon, lamented that they spend almost all their income on petrol and diesel.
“The problem on national grid definitely affects our business big deal. In the past days, we have been experiencing drop in the hours of power supply in our business facility. This has affected us so much,” Chineme the administration manager of Echelon Heights, one of the Five-Star hotels in Port Harcourt, said.
In Enugu, the former general manager, Enugu State Tourism Board and manager, Eze Park, said: “These outages are becoming unbearable for people like us who are into hospitality business.”
Eze, who operates a private business, added: “For some days now, we haven’t had power and that has put so much pressure on my resources as a businessman.
“We buy diesel at N1, 700 per litre. When that is no longer sustainable, we resort to buying fuel for a smaller generator at N700 per litre.
“But, since this system collapse, that has become frequent, the situation has been so unbearable. You can’t even buy ice blocs from anywhere.”
Association: NEMSA, SON not enforcing standards
While angry electricity users in Lagos, Osun, Rivers, Abia, Enugu, Benue and Adamawa states counted the impact of the latest outage, the Association for Public Policy Analysis (APPA) said the Nigerian Electricity Management Service Agency (NEMSA) and the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) should be held liable for not enforcing standard in the power sector.
The National President of the association, Princewill Okorie, said: “NEMSA is to enforce standard, it should explain how substandard electrical materials were installed by unlicensed electricians. SON should account for how the substandard materials usually enter this country.”
Chief Executive Officer, Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), Dr. Muda Yusuf, who said outages worsen inflation, advocated payment of compensation to consumers for power disruptions.
“Anytime DisCos are not able to meet the minimum power supply, the consumers must be credited for the lost hours,” Yusuf told our reporter.
He added: “The grid collapse will affect businesses adversely because production processes will be disrupted and it is very costly to restart a production line once disrupted; it also means the businesses will have to resort to alternative source of power which is more expensive. This will also worsen high cost of inflation in the country.
“The stand of the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) is that compensation should be paid to consumers for such power distruptions. But whether the regulator will be able to enforce this is another issue.
“DisCos have put too many consumers on that Band A all because of the money they want to make. I was surprised when I saw the number of consumers now on Band A. I don’t think the DisCos have the capacity to deliver what they are promising. There are too many people on that band at the moment.
“The DisCos may be depriving others on lower bands and that is the danger of privatising utilities because leaving utilities completely in the hands of the private sector creates a lot of social inequality.
“While the DisCos are chasing their profits, government also needs to weigh in so that consumers on other bands are not thrown into perpetual darkness.”
