The Minister of Power, Mr Abubakar Aliyu, disclosed that the country’s national grid collapsed 45 times in five years just as he assured Nigerians of efficient power supply across the country.
Aliyu, who spoke at an interactive session about “Frequent National Grid collapse”, with the Senate Committee on Power and critical stakeholders, said the country recorded three collapses between March and April.
He, however, declared that the cases of system collapse have been on the decline, adding that the country has witnessed improvement in the grid stability over the years.
“For example in 2017, we had 15 total collapse incidents, in 2018, we had 12, in 2019, we had nine in 2020, we had four and in 2021, two. This year, we have had three collapses due to severe disturbances on the grid,’’ he said.
The minister explained that the system collapse usually occurred when there were imbalances between the connected generation, transmission and distribution network.
He, however, said the government was doing everything within its power to ensure that the country had a reliable grid.
“This administration has invested huge sums to see that Nigeria has a stable, reliable grid transporting quality power. Another challenge we are having are issues of right-of-way across various states. Just recently, I raised this issue with the governors during one of their meetings. I am pleased to inform you that we are making significant progress. I am pleased to inform you that we are making significant progress.
“Once we fully execute these projects across the states, coupled with the efforts we are making to increase operational capacity, we can assure you that we will have a strengthened and reliable grid,” he said.
