FG apologises over outages in 17 states caused by national grid collapse

The federal government has apologised over the recent collapse of the national grid which caused power outages for several days in 17 states in the nation. The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, spoke on Thursday during a courtesy visit to Kano State Governor, Abba Yusuf, describing the situation as “very unfortunate.” Mr Adelabu said the federal government was overhauling the national grid to reduce the frequent disturbances in the system and improve power supply across the country. He said that the national grid was over 50 years old, with weak, obsolete, and dilapidated components including the lines and substations with old transformers. Mr Adelabu said most of the towers installed on the system a long time ago were falling due to the effects of weather and climate change, adding that they needed continuous maintenance.
The minister said: “This grid requires a lot of money to maintain. So, what we have now, we will continue to manage it and prevent frequent disturbances until we are able to overhaul this infrastructure 100 per cent.’’ Mr Adelabu said the federal government was revamping the entire grid structure as various programmes were being put in place to ensure that old infrastructure was replaced. He listed the programmes to include the Presidential Power Initiative  known as the Siemens project, which is currently ongoing. According to him, there is also the Transmission Company of Nigeria’s expansion programme supported by the World Bank and the African Development Bank. Mr Adelabu said that the pilot phase of the Siemens project had just been concluded and it involved the importation of 10 power transformers and 10 power mobile substations. He said that phase one of the Siemens project would soon commence, after which the grid performance would be better than what was being experienced presently.
The minister said that the improvement witnessed in the power sector was not accidental, explaining that many old power transformers were replaced by new ones. He said, “We have also installed and inaugurated the mobile substations where they were needed and that was what contributed to the stability being witnessed.’’ He appealed to Nigerians to protect the nation’s power infrastructure from vandals, saying they cost a lot of money. Earlier, Mr Yusuf, represented by his Chief of Staff, Shehu Sagagi, said that the state government was completing work at the 10 megawatt hydropower plant at Tiga and six megawatts at the Chalawa hydropower plant. He said, “They are assisting five per cent of the population as well as the installation of solar power in the metropolis, which has assisted the security situation in the state. When we came on board, we procured 500 transformers and they were distributed to improve power supply.’’ Mr Yusuf said that the state government would soon establish a state electricity market to attract the private sector. He said, “We callon President Bola Tinubu to intervene and set up an emergency mini-grid power plant that will supply adequate voltage in the state and diversify generation to reduce dependence on the national grid.” (NAN)