…Setup 6-member technical committee to address challenges
From David Onuoja, Abuja
Due to the national grid collapsed, twice within a week, the Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, has summoned the leadership of the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), and the Transmission company of Nigeria (TCN), to an emergency meeting.
The Minister who expressed displeasure at the incident, said, the disturbances was capable of rubbishing the giant strides made in the last one year which has led to an increased generation and distribution of 5, 527 megawatts, a record generation in three years.
In view of this, he immediately constituted a forensic investigation committee with a mandate to unravel and advise the government on the necessary solutions to make the national grid robust and reliable in addition to the ongoing efforts of the government like the Presidential Power Initiatives (PPI) and the Nigeria Electricity Transmission Project (NETAP).
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According to a statement from the Special Adviser, Strategic Communication and Media Relations to the Honourable Minister of Power, Hon. Bolaji Tunji, the Committee is to also establish the root cause of both incidents especially a review of potential sabotage on the system.
Its work also, is to holistically review the national grid stability and identify investments and technical capacities required to make the grid smart and resilient.
In addition, a technical team has been deployed to access the critical nodes on the national grid to identify potential vulnerabilities and proffer recommendations and how to prevent future disruptions to the grid.
It could be recalled, that on Monday, October 14, there was a partial collapse due to the tripping of a line at the Jebba Transmission Substation and recurring fault at the Osogbo Transmission Substation.
Efforts to restore the grid further resulted in a setback the following day. The System was however fully restored on Wednesday, October 16, 2024.
Adelabu explained that there was no grid collapse on Tuesday as was widely speculated as the setback was a continuation of Monday’s restoration efforts on the grid.
He however, said that, what was described on Saturday, October 19, as grid collapse was not, as it was a deliberate protective shut down of the grid as a result of the explosion of the Jebba transformer. And this was restored within two hours. “ What we had were more of grid disturbances than collapses”, he noted.
Again, Preliminary assessment of Jebba incident suggested that the explosion was as a result of ageing equipment unrelated to the initial collapse.
The six-member committee are; Engr. Nafisat Ali, Executive Director, Independent System Operator (ISO), who leads the committee, Dr. Chidi Ike, Commissioner, NERC, Engr. Ishola (GM. National Control Centre (NCC) , Engr. Emmanuel Nosike, Director, Transmission, Federal Ministry of Power (FMoP), Engr. Ali Sharifai (GM, Transmission Service Provider (TSP) and Mr. Adedayo Olowoniyi, Chief Technical Adviser to the Minister of Power.
The team is expected to present a report to the Honourable Minister by November 1, 2024.
