Continued grid collapse reveals rot in the power sector

The recent embarrassing collapse of the country's power grid three times a week has further highlighted the deep rot in this beleaguered sector.

From Monday 14 October to Saturday 19 October 2024, the national power grid collapsed three times, plunging the nation into complete darkness.

The nationwide embarrassment began to unravel on Monday, October 14, when the power grid was completely shut down. Efforts by Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) engineers to restore it had reached an advanced stage on Tuesday, October 15, when it suddenly tripped for the second time in 24 hours.

After several hours of restoration work by helpless and tired engineers, the network was restored on Tuesday night.

Many Nigerians fortunate enough to have relatively stable power supplies were struggling to have power for 86 hours straight on Saturday, October 19, when a thunderstorm struck for the third time in a week.

According to the system operator (SO), the national power grid collapsed again at around 8:16 a.m. on October 19, sending the entire nation into further darkness.

Although the grid was restored and operational for over seven days without any shutdown, energy experts are warning Nigerians not to place high hopes on the system as the identified issues responsible for the frequent outages have not been addressed.

Despite spending billions of dollars of taxpayers' money and investor capital, the sector had defied all measures imposed by successive governments to pull it out of the doldrums.

Available data shows that the power grid has collapsed 105 times in the last nine years and five months. While the power grid recorded 93 shutdowns during former President Muhammadu Buhari's eight-year administration from May 2015 to May 2023, it has officially collapsed 12 times since incumbent President Bola Tinubu came to power over a year ago.

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The country's electricity value chain consists of three main branches: generation, transmission and distribution.

While the power transmission division is largely controlled by private power generation companies (Gencos) as well as the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), which manages some not yet privatized power plants owned by the three tiers of government (FG, States and LGAs), the transmission infrastructure is managed by the state-owned Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

The final section in the country's electricity chain, distribution, is managed by 11 distribution companies whose task is to deliver the electricity generated by the Gencos and transmitted by the TCN to end consumers.

Meanwhile, Business Hallmark's findings showed that at the heart of Nigeria's energy debacle are the two weakest links in the power infrastructure chain, the transmission and distribution arms.

According to a report by a leading rating agency and provider of industry research and knowledge in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa, Augusto and Co. Limited, Nigeria's peak electricity demand as of December 2022 was 19,798 megawatts, while installed generation capacity was 13,014 megawatts.

Citing the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Augusto and Co. put the capacity of the national grid at about 8,100 megawatts, which is about 5,000 megawatts less than the installed capacity of the gencos.

However, energy experts criticized the NERC data used by Augusto, arguing that the grid no longer had the capacity to deliver more than 6,000 megawatts due to weak and outdated equipment.

According to Eng. Dipo Iluyomade, a systems engineer and former employee of the defunct National Electricity Power Authority (NEPA), said while the 23 gencos operating in the country had increased total power generation to over 16,384 megawatts, the capacity of the national grid was below 6,000 dropped megawatts.

“While Nigeria currently has an installed power generation capacity of around 16,000 megawatts as more power plants come online, the highest peak generation was achieved in September 2023 at 8,415 megawatts.

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“Gencos cannot increase production further because the national grid cannot support it. The TCN's highest output was reached on August 1, 2023 with 5,377 megawatts. Since then the frequency has fallen.

“Due to several constraints, the TCN is currently unable to generate more than 6,000 MW of electricity generated by Gencos.

“Several attempts to overload the network without appropriate investment in the infrastructure have led to system collapse in the past. Most grid outages are due to grid overload of more than 5,000 megawatts.

“Meanwhile, TCN is not the only entity responsible for our electricity crisis. The distribution companies also bear their own share of the blame.

“In the best case scenario, distribution companies can only accommodate 5,000 megawatts, assuming the TCN is capable of providing that capacity. What they are currently producing is between 3,700 megawatts and 4,300 megawatts.

“We are all aware of the constant confrontation between the TCN and discos over allegations of rejection of loads. I don't blame the discos because they can't handle what they can't handle.

“For the country to have a stable power supply, the challenges faced by these two difficult connections must be fully addressed,” the former NEPA official noted.

Meanwhile, BH's independent findings showed that the national electricity grid, a complex network used to transmit electricity from power stations to distribution companies across the country, is in very poor condition.

According to available information, electricity transmission in Nigeria began in the first half of the 1960s when the two national hydroelectric power stations at Kainji and Jebba were interconnected through a 330 kV transmission line by the National Control Center (NCC) at Osogbo in Osun State.

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In later years, the 330 kV transmission network was expanded to 28 to enable the construction of new power stations across the country.

These included the Shiroro Dam in Niger State, the Egbin Thermal Power Plant in Lagos and two gas power plants, Sapele and Afam, in Delta State.

The transmission infrastructure continued to grow from 28 to 52 stations and 64 transmission lines between 1998 and 2012.

The network connects these power plants to four control centers (a national control center in Oshogbo and three additional control centers in Benin, Shiroro and Egbin) via an extensive transmission line.

Root causes

However, most of the equipment purchased for the factory from Japan in 1963 is still in active use.

Several sources in TCN who spoke to our correspondent on the matter said the existing transmission infrastructure in the country is outdated and needs a complete overhaul.

“Most Nigerians don’t really know what the problems are. But let me tell you how we got to this sad state.

“The highly complex transmission system draws 330 kilovolts of electricity from power plants, both hydro and gas. Since the electricity is useless at this high frequency, TCN must first regulate it down to 132, 33 and 11 kilovolts before it can feed it into its power lines.

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“Unfortunately, most of the lines are outdated and obsolete, resulting in a loss of more than 40% in transmission. In fact, some are over 50 years old.

“For example, the first transmitting stations and lines that were built in the mid-1960s are now almost 60 years old.

“Successors built in the early 1980s to divert power from the Egbin, Afam and Sapele power stations are also over 40 years old.

“While most of the equipment no longer works, replacements have not been procured.

“Nigerians today rely largely on the old and unstable substations and power lines. Although they are old and tired, they are still in use thanks to the ingenuity of the engineers at TCN, who are constantly cannibalizing parts from unusable machines to repair those that still exist.

“Although recent governments have made efforts to address the energy infrastructure crisis, the deficit is quite large.

“The nation will need at least 10 to 15 years of continuous investment to restore the sector to its former glory,” the engineer further added.

A very weak distribution network is also a factor contributing to the current state of the country's power sector.

According to those involved in the transmission chain, technical losses, particularly weak feeder transformers and substations, as well as non-technical losses, namely low investment and power theft, have combined to undermine the government's efforts to ensure stable power supply.

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Adding to this challenge are gas supply shortages, depriving gencos of much-needed fuel to fuel their power plants.

Due to the gas shortage, many power plants are idle for months and do not contribute to the national electricity grid.

Furthermore, the government has largely failed to put the sector on a solid footing through financing and supervision.

For example, regulatory inconsistencies and inadequate government funding have hampered efforts to modernize the network.

While the private sector is hesitant to invest in the faltering sector due to the government's ongoing curb on tariffs, the government has been unable to raise the necessary funds to transform the sector.

Government handicap

Energy Minister Adebayo Adelabu recently commented on the poor state of electricity transmission and distribution in the country, saying that a collapse of the power grid was inevitable due to the outdated equipment that the TCN still uses for power transmission.

“We keep talking about the network collapse. Grid collapse, grid collapse, whether it is a complete collapse, a partial collapse or a minor trip.

“This is almost inevitable given the state of our energy infrastructure today. The infrastructure is in a deplorable condition. So why are there no failures? Why don't full or partial collapses occur?

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“It will stay that way until we can renew the entire infrastructure. What we are doing now is to make sure we can do it,” the minister explained.

Adelabu added that there is a need to have power grids in different regions or states to put an end to the incessant grid failures.

According to the minister, multiple power grids would ensure stability in every region and state.

Answer

“The new electricity law provides for a decentralized energy supply. It has enabled all sub-national governments, state government and local government to participate in the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity.

“Today we all rely on a single national network; If there is a disruption to the national power grid, all 36 states are affected. It shouldn't be like that.

“This (new law) will allow us to gradually move towards regional groups and possibly state networks.

“And each of these grids is removed and shielded from each other. So if there is a problem with a particular network, only the state it belongs to is affected, not the entire nation. So that is one of the impacts that this electricity law will have,” he explained.

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