According to news reports, blackouts were experienced in most states yesterday with Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) restating reasons for the development. Consumers lamented that the situation has been worse since January than it was in 2023. Most industrial clusters in Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt, and other major cities which enjoy preferential power supply have also witnessed severely low supply. The frequent collapse of the national grid has further compounded the power crisis.
But most of the 11 DisCos apologized, saying many factors, especially low generation, and weak transmission, were responsible. Other DisCos attributed the blackouts to vandalism, debts, and programmed upgrades of electric facilities. The Federal Government said it was addressing the causes of the problems in the sector. Power Minister Adebayo Adelabu assured Nigerians that the situation would soon be over as the root causes of the problems were being tackled. He appealed to electricity consumers nationwide to exercise patience. The TCN last weekend said after it restored the collapsed national grid on Friday, some DisCos were unable to evacuate their allocations.
Early yesterday, total generation stood at 4,000MW but it dropped to 3,417MW as of 4.43 pm. As of 4:43 pm when power dipped to 3,417MW, AEDC received 611MW while EEDC’s allocation, which was 1,026MW when the total generation stood at 4,000MW, dropped significantly to only 513MW. Total energy generated by TCN as of Sunday was 96,131.84MWh, an average of 4,005.4MW, while the total energy sent out to the DisCos was 94,991.10MWh, an average of 3,957.96MW. Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC), Ikeja Electric (IE), Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC), Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC), Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) and Jos Electricity Distribution Company (JEDC) said the causes of the outages were beyond them. The DisCos added that vandalism and theft of electricity infrastructure remained major issues negatively impacting power supply. It also said that payment apathy by customers was a challenge to adequate supply of power.
