A source in one of the distribution companies (DisCo) said the feeders for most DisCos nationwide were out of supply.

The development, the source added, has left virtually all franchise areas for DisCos across the 36 states in darkness.

According to the source, as of 4p.m, the grid output was 2984 megawatts. But by 5 p.m., the 21 plants on the grid had zero output.

In February, a grid collapse also left the nation in darkness.

A last check with the source when filing this report revealed that Azura was the only plant on the grid with an output capacity of about 54 megawatts.

Egbin, Afam, Geregu, Ibom Power, Jebba, Kainji, Odukpani, and Olorunsogo, among other plants, all had zero output.

In November 2013, the federal government privatised all generation and 11 distribution companies, with the FG retaining the ownership of the transmission company. This was to improve efficiency in the sector.

However, since privatisation, the grid has collapsed more than 140 times.

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The loss of 676MW from Egbin, Nigeria’s biggest power plant, at 10 am on Monday, dropped grid supply from 4,416MW to 3,632MW.

A statement by the generation company posted on its verified X account (formerly Twitter) said the showdown was to allow Nigerian Gas Company to maintain the pipeline bringing gas into the plant.

The plant stated: “This is to notify the public that as at 11:13 hours of 18 December 2023, Egbin Power generating station was shut down to allow the Nigeria Gas Company (NGC) to maintain a linking gas pipeline supplying gas to Egbin Power Station.

“The station will be shut down for 3 days from today. This means a reduction of 676MW of bulk power generated into the nation’s grid for 3 days and consequently the quantum of bulk power available to be delivered to distribution companies load centres nationwide for the period”.

From the transmission end, a series of incidents recorded in Lagos and Nasarawa states in the past three days have reduced the wheeling capacity of the Transmission Company of Nigeria.

The company in a statement by the General Manager, Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah said TCN stated that “its maintenance crew is carrying out scheduled maintenance on its Keffi/Akwanga 132KV transmission line. The exercise is to enable them to replace broken 132kV Insulators.

“The maintenance commenced today, Monday,18th December, 2023, by 8.30 am to 5:30 pm for eight hours only. Keffi/Akwanga and its environs will be affected. Supply will be restored today”.

TCN had 24 hours earlier reported that at “about 7:57 pm on Saturday, 16th December 2023, there was a fire incident, following an explosion of capacitor voltage transformer on the Maryland-lkorodu 132/33kV transmission line 2.

“This necessitated the emergency opening of the substation at 7 58pm, which entailed the isolation of Maryland-llupeju 132kV line 1, which was the source of power supply to the substation”.

Mbah added that “efforts were made to extinguish the fire but due to the presence of oil-immersed equipment within the surrounding area of the explosion it was difficult until the Lagos State Fire Service arrived at 8:45 pm and put out the fire completely at 8:55 pm. At 9:02 p.m., the same day, the substation was restored back into service.

TCN said it was “diligently pursuing the reconductoring/rehabilitating of all its 132kV transmission lines and switchgears nationwide, which would greatly help eliminate such incidents”.

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The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) which disclosed this Monday said the repair work on the pipeline followed the directive by the Group Managing Director, Dr. Maikanti Baru, to carry out an assessment of the damage with a view to getting a prompt solution.

It would be recalled that a section of the ELP at Abakila in Ondo State blew up in flames on January 2, 2018 as a result of bush fire.

The incident affected gas supply to customers in Ondo, Ogun and Lagos States with subsequent shutdown of a number of power plants.

With the restoration of the ELP and resumption of gas supply, the affected power plants with a combined generating capacity of 1,143MW would resume power generation.

The power plants include: Egbin Power Plant in Lagos State; Olorunshogo Power Plant, PEL Olorunshogo and Paras Power Plant in Ogun State; and Omotosho Power Plant in Ondo State.

The 36-inch Escravos to Lagos Pipeline System (ELPS) is a natural gas pipeline built in 1989 to supply gas from Escravos in the Niger Delta to various consumption utilization areas.

It supplies gas to power plants in the South-west and also feeds the West African Gas Pipeline System.

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Specifically, customers in Ondo, Ogun and Lagos States are expected to be without electricity until the level of damages caused by the outbreak of fire on the ELP System around Okada in Edo State have been ascertained.

As a result, power plants in Egbin, Lagos; Olorunshogo IPP, PEL Olorunshogo, Ogun; Paras Power Plant, Ogun; and Omotosho plant, Ondo state respectively with combined generating capacity of 3,072 megawatts (MW) will remain shut down.

The Ministry of Power attributed the outage to the collapse of Nigeria’s transmission grid on Tuesday night, which resulted in nationwide outage, with attendant loss of 3,072 megawatts (MW) of power.

As at Wednesday evening, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), owners of the pipeline was only able to draft firemen to the scene to contain the fire from the leak point of the pipeline.

However, the fire could not be extinguished due to the high pressure on the line, which supplies gas to power plants in the South West, in addition to feeding the West Africa Gas Pipeline System.

NNPC Group Spokesman, Ndu Ughamadu, said in a statement that the Group Managing Director, Dr. Maikanti Baru, has ordered an immediate assessment of the damage caused by a fire on the ELP, a natural gas pipeline which supplies gas from the Escravos region of the Niger Delta area to Lagos.

According to the statement, the incineration of the ELP, which was built in 1989, was suspected to have been caused by a bush fire on Tuesday night at Abakila, in Ondo State.

“NNPC firemen were drafted to the scene and were able to contain the fire from the leak point of the pipeline incident. However, the fire could not be extinguished due to the high pressure of the line.

“To put off the fire, the line would require being isolated and depressurised, which might lead to a complete shutdown of the pipeline segment for repair works to be carried out.”

NNPC also said the exercise will affect gas supply to customers in Ondo, Ogun, and Lagos State with subsequent shutdown of the six power plants.

Also, spokesman for Egbin Power Station, Nigeria’s biggest plat, Kingsley Okotie, said that Egbin was instructed to shut down completely by the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC), a subsidiary of the NNPC, which operates the pipelines at 2p.m. on Wednesday.

He said: “We lost about 500 MW of electricity to the system collapse last night. We came back on Wednesday morning with 177 MW, but later shut down due to instruction from NGC at about 2p.m.”

An earlier statement from the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, had attributed the outage to technical hitches, which required the shutdown of the pipeline supplying gas to Egbin’s 1,320MW; Olorunsogo National Integrated Power Projects (NIPP), 676 MW; Olorunsogo, 228MW; Omotosho NIPP, 450 MW; Omotosho 338MW; and Para, 60MW power stations.

The Ministry said the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), and the Generation Companies (GENCOS), were working to tackle the technical hitches recorded in the national transmission grid, adding that once restored, output from the hydroelectric power stations and all other unaffected gas fired thermal power stations will be increased.

This, it said, would minimise the impact of the loss of generation from the affected power stations.

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Managing Director of the Nigerian Gas Processing and Transmission Company (NGPTC), Babatunde Bakare, who spoke during the tender for the prequalification for the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC), of the project, Thursday, in Abuja said the bid exercise which witnessed bid submissions by 36 local and international companies, was a demonstration of NNPC’s commitment towards improving power supply in the country in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s vision for the power sector.

NNPC is the biggest gas supplier to Egbin power plant, which in turn, is equally the biggest power plant in Nigeria.

NNPC Chief Project Engineer for the project, Engr. Audu Ibrahim, who represented the NGPTC MD, said the expansion of the metering system to serve the Egbin Power Plant was imperative to coping with the heightened volumes of gas that might be needed as a result of its planned expansion.

The General Manager, Supply Chain Management, represented by the Manager, Rotimi Feyisitan, said due diligence in respect of technical and financial requirements would apply to all the 36 companies which submitted bids in line with the Corporation’s transparency policy.

Feyisitan assured that there would be no under-the-table dealing with any of the companies.

The exercise represents part of NNPC strategic moves to increase its footprint in the nation’s power supply mix, with a view to expanding the Corporation’s stakes in non-core hydrocarbon resources businesses.

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The report release by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in Abuja on Friday indicated that Egbin Power Plant contributed about 12.47 per cent of the average energy generated in the period under review.

The report said that the generation from Egbin represented the highest generation among the 25 power plants.

According to the report, an average of 2,497GWH of energy was sent out as Okpai Power Plant recorded the highest percentage of 12.13 per cent of average energy sent out.

it reported that daily energy generation attained a peak of 3,859.59MW on Oct. 15, 2016, while daily energy sent out on same date was 3,798.16MW.

Similarly, the highest daily energy generated per hour attained a peak of 92,630MWH on Oct. 15, 2016 and daily energy sent out per hour on same date was 91,156 MWH.

It also indicated that, the lowest daily energy generation of 2,522MW in The fourth quarter of 2016 was attained on Oct. 28, 2016, while daily energy sent out on that date was 2,472 MW.

It stated that the lowest daily energy generation per hour was also attained on same date with 60,546 MWH generated and 59,328 MWH sent out.

In November 2016, daily energy generation attained a peak of 3,707.09MW on Nov.22, 2016, while daily energy sent out on same date was 3,644.86MW.

Similarly, the highest daily energy generated per hour in the month under review attained a peak of 88,970MWH, while daily energy sent out per hour on same date was 87,477,156 MWH.

The report showed that daily energy generation dropped to 2,685.26 on Nov. 24, 2016, while daily energy sent out on same date was 2,640.99MW.

In November, the lowest daily energy generation per hour was also attained on same date with 64,446 MWH generated and 63,384MWH sent out.

For December 2016, daily energy generation attained a peak of 3,197.03MW on Dec.1, 2016, while daily energy sent out on same date was 3,153.86.

According to the report, the highest daily energy generated per hour attained a peak of 76,729MWH on Dec. 1, 2016, while daily energy sent out per hour on same date was 75,693 MWH.

The report indicated that the lowest daily energy generation attained in December 2016 was 2,737.34, while the lowest daily energy of 2,691.70 sent out of 2,691.70 was attained on Dec.4.

It further reported that, the lowest daily energy generation per hour of 65,696 MWH was also attained on same date, while 64,601 MWH was sent out.

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Among the reasons for the loss are shortages in gas supply, frequency and line limitations and water levels management constraints that led to several cases of outage in the country.

NESI, which put the average daily revenue loss at N1.5 billion, said gas constraint remained one of the major challenges facing the electricity sector.

The N534 billion is the value of electricity lost on account of the challenges, part of which could have been used to bridge the liquidity gap in the power sector, that is put at N1trillion.

Already, the sector is finding it difficult to access more loans from Nigerian banks due to their inability to meet the payment obligations for previous debts. The situation will also affect the capacity of the power firms to improve on electricity supply to consumers for domestic and industrial uses.

NESI said in its daily statistics on energy losses that the industry lost N1.525 billion on December 24, 2016 alone. It was also disclosed that about 12 power stations could not produce electricity during off-peak under the review period.

Statistics from the National Control Centre, Osogbo, showed that Afam IV-V, Geregu Gas, Alaoji National Integrated Power Project (NIPP), Olorunsogo Gas, Odukpani NIPP, Okpai, Ibom Power, ASCO, AES, Amoku, Rivers NIPP and Gbarain power plants could not produce a single megawatt (MW) on December 25, 2016. Nigeria has installed power output of 11,165MW, of which the 12 plants have combined capacity of 2,035MW.

If this continues, industries and other users will carry on with the burden of providing own electricity outside the national grid even in the new year. Production and prices of goods and services will be negatively impacted and hopes of any early recovery from the current recession will be dimmed.

The electricity generation report showed that Isolated Ground (IG)10 belonging to Kainji Hydro was shut down on Christmas Day due to temperature problem while IG12 was out of operation due to high water leakage.

Also, Steam Turbine (ST) three and four belonging to Egbin were out of operation due to gas constraints. Although with a capacity to generate over 880mw, the unit was only able to produce 278MW.

It was also learnt that contribution from the hydro-power stations dropped in September to 32.95 per cent from their combined contribution of 36.64 per cent in August.

The third Quarter National Grid Performance Information from the Independent System Operation, Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) showed that the Shiroro Hydro Power Station maintained its lead with 14.75 per cent, though down from 15.90 per cent in August.

Egbin Power Station produced 14.05 per cent of the total electricity in the system, which led to a slight increase in the contribution of privatised thermal power stations in September to 29.22 per cent from 28.25 per cent in August.

Aside the drop in power generated, many distribution companies (DISCOs) rejected electricity supplied to them by the generation firms (GENCOs).

For instance, in September 476.36MWH or 12 per cent of the total energy delivered to the DISCOs was rejected, constituting the highest load rejection in the quarter. The breakdown shows that Abuja Disco rejected 94.72 MWH, Port Harcourt Disco with 92.35 MWH, Ibadan 67.14MWH and Benin Disco 46.40 MWH.

Among all the distribution companies, only Kaduna accepted power beyond the MYTO allocation. It was 65.96 MWH in excess.

The DISCOs had in August rejected about 541.56MWH, which was four per cent of the total energy delivered to them. Port Harcourt Disco rejected the most megawatts totaling 239.88. It was followed by Eko Disco with 134.8 MWH.

On the other hand, in august, five Discos took excess loads beyond their MYTO allocation of 187.21MWH. Abuja Disco took the most with 132.81 MWH, followed by Kaduna Disco with 23.21 MWH, Ibadan Disco with 16.24 MWH and Enugu with 12.42 MWH. All these made peak electricity generation to remain stagnant at 3,890.1MW.

But, in defence of the Discos rejecting the allocated electricity, the Executive Director, Research and Advocacy, Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED), Sunday Oduntan, said the development was unavoidable.

He told The Guardian in a telephone interview that the Discos were being impacted by TCN’s infrastructure and technical limitations in wheeling power to the desired geographical areas.

He said: “The truth of the matter is that TCN has not been able to properly transmit the generated power to the various distribution companies. If my customers are in Mushin, you cannot take the power to Victoria Island. How do you expect us to distribute such power?

“No matter how TCN wants to play it to colour the reality of transmission shortcomings, transmission remains the weakest link in the power value chain.”

Regarding the challenges facing the sector, the Managing Director, Benin DISCO, Funke Osibodu, said Nigeria would only have the kind of power that would support full industrialisation when the country is capable of generating at least 150,000MW of electricity.

She noted that with the current generation capacity below 10,000MW, it was obvious that Nigeria had barely scratched the surface as far as the scale of investments needed in the power sector was concerned.

Speaking at the PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Annual Power and Utilities Roundtable, Osibodu said there were shortfall in both the working capital needed for the day-to-day expenses and CapEx.

She said there was an urgent need to enforce a cost-reflective tariff system to stimulate more investments. “The regulator is trying to avoid tariff shock, a situation where the consumer finds it difficult to cope with increased tariff.”

Managing Director, Oando Gas and Power, Bolaji Osunsanya, said the demand for gas was affected by the preference for oil, poor funding of the joint ventures, absence of commercial terms for gas in the production sharing contracts and the lack of clarity and standardisation of the fiscal terms.

He called for the completion of all ongoing gas-based infrastructure to make gas available in the market as well as a more aggressive implementation of the Nigerian Gas Master Plan.

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Lanre Siddiq, Chairman of the branch, who stated this at the branch’s 2014 Engineering Week celebration in Lagos, reiterated that lack of gas supply was responsible for poor power supply in the country.

“Gas supply is causing a great problem for power plants in the country. By now, the country’s power generation would have increased a lot but due to insufficient gas supply, the power generation is dropping.

“Here in Egbin, for the past two weeks, we have been managing the little we have and that is why there is a drop in power generated at the station,” he said.

The chairman said that if the government could improve on gas supply to all the power plants in the country, there would be a tremendous improvement in electricity supply.

He urged the government to expand the existing grid, so that it could evacuate energy generated from all the power plants.

“Government should work in the area of National Grid expansion. For a long time now, the grid has been very weak, it needs to be expanded so that it will be able to effectively evacuate energy generated by the power plants,” he said.

Siddiq said that the Council for Regulation of Engineering (COREN) had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to phase out quackery in the system.

The chairman said that the NSE, Egbin Branch, was known for her dynamism and was well represented in national activities.

“We promote engineering learning and practice in our environment. The branch has also made great contributions in developing the technical capabilities of Egbin staff through workshops and seminars,” he added.

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