Emeka Ezeh, Head of Corporate Communications, Enugu Electricity Distribution Company, EEDC, confirmed that the company lost supply from the grid around 11:31 a.m. on Tuesday.

“In fact, since about 11.31 am, we lost supply. There has not been supply in our network. That’s our situation, but no concrete confirmation yet that it is due to a system collapse”, he said.

On Tuesday afternoon, Kunle Kola Olubiyo, President, Nigeria Consumer Protection Network, suggested that the country has recorded another grid collapse.

“Another grid collapse. Frequency reduced to 47, No Spinning reserve amid load rejection? What’s going on ???” he said in a post on a WhatsApp group.

There was a power outage in parts of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT. But the Abuja Distribution Company attributed the development to a fault in its feeder.

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In a notice to customers, the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) Plc said the national grid collapsed at about 12.40 am today.

Ndidi Mbah, spokesperson for the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), also confirmed the development.

“It is a system collapse, but we are trying to restore it,” she said.

“When there is a system disorder, our priority is to see that it is fully restored, and that is when we can start saying this is from them or that is from them, but restoration is ongoing.”

Also speaking in a statement on Thursday, Emeka Ezeh, head of corporate communications, EEDC, said the system collapse has resulted in the loss of supply currently being experienced across the distribution company’s interface.

“Due to this development, all our interface TCN stations are out of supply, and we are unable to provide service to our customers in Abia, Anambra,  Ebonyi,  Enugu and Imo States,” the DisCo said.

“We are on standby awaiting detailed information of the collapse and restoration of supply from the National Control Centre (NCC), Osogbo.”

Meanwhile, this is the first time the electricity national grid will be collapsing in more than one year, according to the TCN.

The transmission company, in August 2023, said the power grid has maintained uninterrupted stability for over 400 consecutive days.

Major DisCos reported the last system collapse in September 2022.

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Speaking on estimated billing at a stakeholders dialogue on corruption organised by ActionAid Nigeria in Enugu, Chukwuemeka Ezeh, EEDC’s head of communications, said it has already provided 300,000 prepaid meters to its customers.

The electricity distribution company (DisCo) had announced that it would start the distribution of prepaid meters in the south-east from June 15.

The DisCo serves Enugu, Anambra, Imo, Ebonyi and Abia states.

“Crazy bills, estimated bills. This is also one of the things that we inherited. Before now, customers were billed on estimation,” Ezeh said.

“It was the responsibility of the then PHCN to capture buildings, properties for metering but this was neglected. We took over November 2013 and metering our customer was part of the responsibilities we were saddled with. We took it up.

“We might not have metered 100% but I can tell you that 300,000 customers were brought to our prepaid meters platform. It’s a very big and capital intensive responsibility.

“By estimation, we need close to N90 billion to meter all our customers. These are the customers we already have their data.”

On April 3, 2018, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) introduced the MAP regulation to close the huge metering gap in the country and end estimated billing.

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The Head, Communications Department, EEDC, Emeka Eze, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Aba on Monday, said the company had started providing meters in Awkunanaw area of Enugu State, adding that other states will gradually be metered.

“Metering is one major thing we are taking very seriously in the New Year. Over N9 billion had been invested in metering project so far in the last one year.

“The metering gap is quite huge and we do not have the resources to provide meters for everybody at the same time. We have more than 700,000 unmetered customers in our network. So it is something that will take us a while. The 700,000 are the ones we have in our books.

“There are electricity consumers we do not have in our books and are the people we are trying to bring into our books through the enumeration we are to start this January,” he said.

Eze said part of EEDC’s plan in the new year would be to ensure that its services were improved to give customers value for their money, even as he expressed hope that generating companies would improve their generation and so improve the volume of electricity distribution to customers.

He said EEDC was forced to manage the little electricity they were supplied, adding that the vandalism of oil pipes lately had contributed to the low level of supply being experienced.

Eze urged the customers of EEDC not to delay in bringing complaints about service problems to the customer service centres created newly to ease access to the managers for quick solutions.

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NERC had in April announced that beginning from May 1, 2014, consumers who did not receive supply for more than 15 days either cumulatively or continuously would not pay the fixed charge for that month.

The directive by the commission was, however, contested by the Discos in Abuja on Tuesday during a public hearing organised by NERC on an order to revise the payment of the fixed charge component of the Multi Year Tariff Order.

The Assistant General Manager, Regulatory Affairs, Enugu Electricity Distribution Company, Reuben Okoye, argued that the order was made without due consultation with the operators.

He said outages were not caused solely by the Discos, adding that some of the issues that necessitated power failures across the country were as a result of transmission and generation bottlenecks.

Okoye said the penalty for outages should not be borne completely by the Discos but should be spread across the power value chain, and stressed that it was difficult to independently determine customers who experienced outages in a given period.

The Director, Eko Electricity Distribution Company, Ernest Orji, said the rule was difficult to implement as the Discos had yet to acquire statistical meters to determine such claims from consumers.

“In our submission, we argue that there should be a new structure for service charge and not fixed charge so that a percentage of supply is given as compensation to consumers or exempt them from paying the service charge for that period,” he said.

Abimbola Odubiyi of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company argued that the order would encourage power consumers not to pay their bills.

He urged NERC to review the order so as to ensure the sustenance of the market’s financial progress, adding that the rule should be extended to the Transmission Company of Nigeria, the power generation companies and gas suppliers in the case of similar defaults.

In his address, the National Vice President, Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, Sanusi Maijama’a, said, “If one million consumers pay the N750 fixed charge monthly, then they are paying N750bn to the Discos for doing nothing.

“I have said that if there is efficient service and every consumer pays his bill, the government can generate much revenue from power than the oil sector.”

A representative of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, Okpe Adejoh, argued that the 15-day outage penalty period was not enough, as a day of outage meant huge losses for manufacturers.

He suggested that the Discos should consult with generation companies and the TCN to share the penalty on the fixed charge.

Reacting to the arguments, the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, NERC, Dr. Sam Amadi, said the commission would consider the submissions and summarise them into expunging the order, keeping it, and/or revising it, in order to ensure clarity.

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