Electricity: National Grid collapses again less than 24-hours after restoration

Nigeria again returned to darkness Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the nation’s electricity grid was restored following a full day without power nationwide.

The latest system collapse occurred between 5pm and 6pm and the distribution companies, DisCos wasted no time in informing customers of the sad development.

“Dear esteemed customers, we would like to inform you of another system collapse on the national grid which occurred at 5:10 p.m today (Tuesday).

“We are monitoring the situation and will continue to provide updates.

“Once again we apologise for the inconvenience,” Eko DisCo said in a statement.

The Ikeja Electric said it had received notification of the collapse and was waiting for the grid to be restored.

The grid generation reportedly dropped from 3,000 megawatts (MW) earlier to 1,758MW leaving just 12 Generation Companies (Gencos) operating.

READ: Nationwide blackout as National Grid collapses

By the time the grid finally collapsed, there was no report of any GenCo generating power, according to hourly data supplied by the System Operations (SO) arm of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

One industry official also corroborated the record stating that the system collapse of Tuesday was multiple, especially from the gas-fired power plants while there were efforts to supply power to Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city through the three hydropower plants.

These hydros are Kainji, Jebba and Shiroro all in Niger, a state in north central Nigeria.

Analysis of the 12 power plants operating before the grid system collapsed indicates that they were active as of 5pm and generated 1,758MW before the system went off.

The grid had up to 18 plants operating and generated 3,114MW as of 4pm before six plants went off, causing more instability for the system.

RELIABLESOURCENG.COM reports that as at the time of this report early hours of Wednesday, the grid was yet to be up.