‘Nigeria recorded 222 power grid collapses in 12 years’

Ayodele Oni, an energy specialist at Bloomfield LP, says Nigeria’s electricity grid has suffered 222 collapses in the past 12 years.

On Sunday Nigeria witnessed first national grid collapse in 2024. The situation led to shut down of all 20 power plants, except Ibom Power with 31 megawatts.

Discussing the development on Channels TV on Tuesday, Oni said, “Yes we have 222 grid collapses in the past 12 years.”

Outlining the root causes and solutions to the problem, he said, “It is simple, technical issues, poor management; there should be an energy management system that will include supervisory quality and data acquisition system.

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“Also we need to have spinning reserve. This is what happens, when you have water pipe or water hose. If water leaves at its pressure, its pressure drop on one end.

“So when you say you have 4,000 megawatts and one or two key power plant leaves, it all collapses, so we need to make sure we have what is known as spinning reserve, that is power plant that can be easily kick in once one goes off.

“We also need to constantly maintain our infrastructure, I understand that the TCN is working on that. I think that in the next one year or so it becomes something of the past, or there will be very rare occurrences.”