Nine hours of darkness as national grid collapses for the 10th time in 2019

The national electricity grid recorded another collapse on Friday, throwing most parts of the country into darkness for nine hours.

Ndidi Mbah, spokesperson of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), told TheCable that the system collapse, which is the 10th this year, happened around 2:01 p.m., but that the grid was restored around 9:01 p.m.

The incident was said to have led to power generation dropping to zero megawatts(MW). According to Mbah, the cause is being investigated.

The grid suffered four total collapses in January, and one each in February and April.

TheCable had reported how the grid collapsed twice within 24 hours in May which resulted in a reduction of electricity allocation to distribution companies (DisCos) across the country.

On June 30, a fire outbreak at a power substation in Benin, Edo state, led to the total collapse of the national grid, making it the ninth total collapse in the year.

The TCN had blamed the system collapse on the massive load rejection by the DisCos.

But the DisCos blamed the frequent collapses on poor protection equipment used for power transmission.

The Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED), the umbrella body of the DisCos, said the grid has recorded over 100 partial and total transmission system collapses since the privatisation of the sector in 2013.