In the last 14 years, spanning the period between 2010 and 2023, Nigeria’s power supply has suffered roughly 232 cases of partial and total collapses, according to a THISDAY analysis of industry data, raising fears in the industry that unless remarkable progress is made, the current efforts of the administration to reflate the economy will remain a dream, writes Emmanuel Addeh
To cure Nigeria of its incessant electricity challenges, the federal government in 2013 carried out a partial privatisation of the power sector. This means that today, only the transmission segment is still tightly under government control.
But despite that action, including pumping money into the sector in trillions, there appears to be no marked improvement. If anything, what has clearly changed is perhaps the nomenclature of some of the institutions in the sector.
From the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) to the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) and then to its unbundling into about 18 successor companies, the story has been largely that of darkness, literally speaking.
Why Does the Grid Collapse?
The national power grid, a network of electrical transmission lines connecting generating stations to loads over the entire country, is designed to operate within certain stability limits in terms of voltage (330kV+5 per cent) and frequency (50Hz+5 per cent).
Whenever the grid operates out of these stability ranges, it becomes unstable, power quality decreases, and leads to wide-scale supply disruptions, resulting in grid collapse and blackouts.
Analysts fear that the current issues with power distribution will impact negatively on the economy as well as frustrate the commitment of President Bola Tinubu’s administration to improve the economy. They pointed out that the instability in power supply will continue to scare away multinational companies and kill indigenous ones as costs of alternative power supply bite harder.
Already, many small and medium-scale enterprises have gone under as the combination of rising cost of living and naira devaluation is forcing consumers to retrace their steps.
Nigeria’s Fragile Grid
Recently, a THISDAY review of available data showed that in 2010, Nigeria experienced 42 total and partial crashes; 19 in 2011; 24 in 2012; still 24 in 2013; 13 in 2014, and 10 partial and total grid crashes in 2015.
In addition, in 2016, it rose to 28; it was 21 in 2017; 13 in 2018; 11 in 2019, and four in 2020. In 2021, Nigeria suffered two collapses, and about four in 2022 and 2023, after the nation celebrated a reprieve of 400 days of stability on the grid, it suffered about three incidents in quick succession.
The causes of these collapses could range from gas shortages, outright vandalism, fire incidents, unexplained fluctuations, low water levels, and load rejection by the Distribution Companies (Discos), among others.
Nationwide Blackout in 2024
Last Sunday the national electricity power grid collapsed for the first time in 2024, again throwing the entire country into total darkness.
The power generated on the grid slumped significantly at about 11:51 am, falling from about 3,852mw at 6 am to as low as 59mw at noon on the day.
However, at about 5 pm, it had begun to pick, hitting 736mw, even though many parts of Nigeria, including Abuja, the seat of government remained without power supply.
At the time it collapsed, THISDAY checks showed that the grid managed by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) had 20 power plants completely off, with just Ibom Power online.
A nation of over 200 million people, Nigeria still depends on less than 5,000mw to power their homes and businesses daily, even though individuals self-generate over 40,000mw.
At the time of going to press, Distribution Companies (Discos) were already alerting customers to the situation.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that Nigeria loses as much as $29 billion, which is 5.8 per cent of its annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP), due to a lack of energy and unreliable power supplies.
TCN Blames Gas Shortage
But in a response, the TCN said that the incident wasn’t a total collapse of the grid but that what was experienced was a partial disturbance, with Ibom power “islanded”.
TCN said it initiated immediate restoration of the affected part of the grid, and that presently, the grid is fully restored.
“Before the incident, total generation on the grid was 3,901.25mw at 08:00 hours, a little over three hours before the time of partial collapse. It is important to note that low power generation has persisted since January 2024, to date, exacerbating daily due to the lingering gas constraint,” it said.
“This, combined with the current low power generation due to gas constraints, caused the imbalance leading to the partial system disturbance,” a statement signed by the General Manager of Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah, added.
Is SCADA the Solution?
Many industry players have said that the procurement of a SCADA system will significantly reduce the frequency of grid collapses or at best disturbances.
The immediate past Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu before his exit with the Muhammadu Buhari administration, had noted that the federal government would fast-track the purchase and installation of the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to curb the rate of grid failures.
The SCADA system is software used to monitor and control an electrical grid system based on the information it collects from the substations within that system.
Speaking to THISDAY after one of the crashes recently, a legal practitioner and National President of the Nigeria Consumer Protection Network (NCPN) Mr Kola Olubiyo, a veteran analyst in the Nigerian power sector, compared the grid to a new car which over the years has now been turned to a taxi.
He expressed surprise that Nigeria was still using equipment manufactured and deployed in the 1960s, insisting that even as of today, there’s rarely any way the operators know what is happening end-to-end on the grid.
“Most of this equipment by the time they were privatised, there was no critical technical evaluation…there was no diagnostic appraisal. The equipment is obsolete. If you built equipment in 1967, it is supposed to have a shelf life. It is not supposed to be used for life.” he said.
Families, Businesses Suffer
As the worsening state of affairs continues to persist, Nigerians, both rich and poor are bearing the brunt in diverse ways. In fact, as a new angle to the impact of the crisis, aside from businesses that suffer, women recently protested in Rivers state that the phenomenon was affecting their marriages negatively.
Some women stormed the office of the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company, saying their husbands no longer have time with them at night due to intense heat waves occasioned by bad power supply.
“We lack romance with our husbands’, ‘Our husbands no longer touch us at night’, No light no payment’, ‘The heat is too much,’ and ‘PHED help us to sleep well with our husbands’, some of the placards read.
“This lack of light is making our soup sour. Even when our husbands want to make love to us, the heat will not allow it. We can’t even charge our phones and preserve our food. We are worried,” one protester said.
Funny, but not funny! To say that the power supply in Nigeria is in a parlous state would be just expressing the obvious. Although Nigeria’s electricity supply crisis is not a recent development, what is different now is the scale of blackouts nationwide.
This is coupled with the fact that despite the rise in tariffs by hundreds of percentages in the last few years and the government’s intermittent interventions, the problem is not going away.
Situation Unsustainable, Says Govt
The federal government has also recently acknowledged the drop in Nigeria’s total electricity generation from an average of 4,500mw to just over 3,000 in recent weeks, stressing that it was doing everything to resolve the issues.
A statement in Abuja by Bolaji Tunji, the Special Adviser, Strategic Communication and Media Relations to the Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, quoted him as saying that efforts were being made to offset outstanding payments to the Generation Companies (Gencos).
Cost-reflective Tariff as Panacea?
Most sector players believe that a cost-reflective tariff regime will significantly turn things around in the power sector.
For instance, the Chairman of the board Of Directors of Mainstream Energy Solutions Limited, Sani Bello, believes that the absence of a cost-reflective tariff represents a major challenge that must be addressed to provide sustainable liquidity for the entire value chain.
“What we continue to tackle today is the lack of cost reflective tariff that will provide sustainable liquidity for the entire value chain, strengthened laws and enforcement of these laws that will criminalise and deter energy theft as well as non-payment of electricity bills,” he said recently.
The government agrees. But the political will to enforce remains an issue. Special Adviser on Energy and Infrastructure, Office of the Vice President, Sodiq Wanka, noted that as of Q2, 2023, for every kWh of electricity sent to the grid, only 60 per cent of it was paid for.
“Even the tariff paid for that unit of electricity is far from being cost-reflective, especially in light of the recent devaluation of the naira,” he said at a recent event.
But the government insists that with current economic realities, it would be difficult to add to the burden Nigerians currently carry. It has therefore decided to subsidise in the short term.