The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has declared that it will conduct an investigative public hearing to address the recurring grid collapses and widespread outages which always throw several cities into darkness in the country.
Penpushing reports that the commission made this known in a statement posted on its X handle on Saturday explaining that the date and venue of the public hearing will be announced in the national dailies.
The commission said it notes with concern the recent escalating incidence of grid disturbances, which often lead to power outages in several states, thus reversing many of the gains recently achieved in reducing the infrastructure deficit and improving grid stability.
“Initial reports on the grid disturbance that occurred this morning indicate that today’s outage was triggered by an explosion of a current transformer at the Jebba transmission station at 0815 hrs and associated cascade of power plants shutdown arising from the loss of load’, the statement read
Penpushing further reports that the commission stated that efforts were made to restore power supply across the country with power significantly restored, as at 1300 hrs, in 33 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
“In line with the provisions of the Electricity Act 2023, the unbundling of the System Operator function (ISO) out of Transmission Company of Nigeria Plc is ongoing with the expectation that an independent SO would engender more discipline in grid management and optimised investment in infrastructure’.
“In pursuit of finding a permanent resolution to the challenges of the national grid, the commission shall shortly conduct an investigative public hearing with a view to identifying immediate and remote causes of recurring incidence of grid disturbances and widespread outages. The date and venue of the public hearing will shortly be announced in the national dailies and stakeholders are encouraged to participate,” the statement said.
Penpushing also reports that the latest electricity grid collapsed again occurred at about 8.18am on Saturday, throwing several cities into darkness, while this is coming days after the grid collapsed on Tuesday, while record has it that there have been over six cases of grid collapse in 2024 alone.
The record in same vein has it that in recent years, the power sector has experienced many challenges in areas of electricity policy enforcement, regulatory uncertainty, gas supply, transmission system constraints, and significant power sector planning shortfalls.
Penpushing reports that the Nigerian government in November 2013, privatised all power generation and 11 distribution companies, with the government retaining the ownership of the transmission company. This was to improve efficiency in the sector, however, since the privatisation, the grid has continued to collapse amid efforts to reposition the power sector.
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