TCN’s incompetence blamed as power generation drops to 9mw

The Nigerian Consumer Protection Network (NCPN) has put the blame of the system collapse on the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which it said had failed to get its priority right.

On Sunday night, power generation dipped to mere nine megawatts.

Prior to the collapse, the System Operator (SO) in its performance report put peak performance at 3,703mw.

On the day under review, the NESI generated a total energy 2,869.01mw and distributed 2,824mw.

Spokesman of the Network, Kunle Olubiyo, a lawyer, challenged the TCN to prioritise its use of funds for the national grid.

The TCN said a major setback experienced by the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) triggered the lowest generation following which the national grid collapsed.

The setback immediately threw the country into darkness forcing consumers to fall back to alternative sources for power.

In a public notice to its customers, the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) management explained: “The current power outage is due to a system failure from the National Grid. The system collapsed at about 6:49pm today (12th June, 2022), causing the outage currently being experienced.

“We appeal for your understanding as well all stakeholders are working hard to restore normal supply.”

The Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company (KEDC) also pleaded with its customers. It attributed the outage in its area of coverage to the system failure.

Its Head, Corporate Communication, Abdulazeez Abdullahi, noted that the collapse occurred 18:47pm on Sunday.

He said: “We regret to inform you that the power outage being experienced in our franchise states is due to system collapse of the national grid.

“The collapse occurred at about 18:47pm this (Sunday), hence, the loss of supply on all our outgoing feeders.

“Power supply shall be restored as soon as the National Grid is powered back, our sincere apologies for any inconvenience.”

The TCN General Manager, Public Affairs, Mrs. Ndidi Mbah had not yet responded to calls from our reporter to find out what the company was doing to restore power.

All enquiries sent to her through text messages seeking explanation on the collapsed grid got no response.

According to Malam Isa Sanusi, Special Assistant on Media Affairs to Power Minister Abubakar Aliyu, said the TCN was already issuing a press statement on the matter.

The NCPN spokesman blamed obsolete equipment and lack of maintenance for frequent collapse of the grid.

Olubiyo said: “The issue is not lack of fund but misplaced priority vis a visa misapplication of funds. Our emphasis should have being on how to improve on technical investments of the grid and not the administration of high capacity transformers. We have so many generation that is being stranded.”