… assures Nothern residents of power restoration by Sunday
The federal government, as part of the effort towards ensuring the stability of the national grid, is considering the establishment of separate grids to serve Nigerians at the regional levels.
Adebayo Adelabu, the minister of power, disclosed this in a press conference organised by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) in Abuja on Tuesday. According to him, these regional or state grids will ensure that all parts of the country are not affected by sudden disturbances on the grid.
This follows the period of grid collapse which rocked the country recently, affecting livelihoods and businesses.
“Given the weakness, dilapidation and obsolescence of the existing grid, we believe that we need a backup grid that will serve as a failover option to the existing grid. If anything happens to the existing grid, there will be a backup option. There will be a failover option, which is an alternative route for transmitting power.
“And this is likened to you having an expressway, just a single line leading to a particular destination. If there is a breakdown in that single lane, it’s a problem.
There are no alternatives but once you have an alternative, you just redirect your route and you get your destination as planned. If you have this super grid, which is what exists in advanced countries, it will reduce the absolute reliance on the single national grid and this is receiving support from Mr. President.
“And that will bring an end to grid disturbances or grid collapse. This will ensure that we also create alternative routes. It won’t be just a single route to transmit power to a particular location.
There will be alternative routes once you add the super grid,” he explained.
When we have this, as we say, approval, we go to the Federal Executive Council and get the approval. And we start this. And we’ve got investors and financiers for this project.
The minister who noted that the project is capital intensive, said that the project has started receiving buy-in from investors and financiers.
Adelabu also assured of efforts to ensure power restoration in the northern part of the country, which he said will be completed before the weekend.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria, last week had said that its Shiroro-Mando transmission line was damaged due to sabotage, causing a power outage in many northern states.
Adelabu who spoke on ways of restoring light to the north said, “so, I can assure you that before the end of this week, light will be restored to the north. We are exploring alternative route, we are hoping that in a matter of days, light will be restored to the north.”
He disclosed that there is a bill before the National Assembly for capital punishment for perpetrators of vandalism. “We want stiffer punishment for these criminals. Also, we need to look at stopping the sale of scrap metals in the country. They are those who encourage vandalism because they buy these things from criminals cheaply,” he added.
In his remarks, Sule Abdulaziz, the Managing Director of TCN, decried the prevalence of insecurity in the region, which he said is affecting the activities of the company, adding that there is a need for collaboration with security personnel
He said, “Shiroro – Mando 330kv line 1 tripped on 9th September 2024, patrol of the safe area was done, but the faulty section could not be reached due to
insecurity. Efforts were made by using a local vigilante who confirmed a snap conductor on a tower but they could not identify the tower number.
“Arrangements were made to use the local group to escort our engineers in the night to effect repairs to evade the bandits in the location. Unfortunately, we did not succeed because the bandits got wind of our intentions and laid siege to the area. Minimum supply was maintained to the North-West corridor through the second circuit until 13th October, 2024 when the second line tripped and failed to stay on trial reclosure.
“Local vigilantes were again engaged to comb the area but could only access part of the safe area. Hence, TCN solicited the support of the Nigeria Air Force, Kaduna for unmanned aerial surveillance on 17th October 2024 and the impacted towers were identified. They were four (4) in number with 3 collapsed and 1
number twisted.
“In another related development, vandalism of Ugwuaji – Apir 330kV lines were reported on 21st October 2024 causing tripping of the lines. Trial reclosure failed and patrol revealed damaged conductors due to vandalism. This compounded the transmission of bulk power to the Northern corridor as these lines serve as link between the Northern and Southern area. This outage severely affected the wheeling capacity of TCN.”
He however explained that the area affected has been secured with the help of the Nigerian Army adding that a concerted effort is ongoing on one of the lines for restoration.
Restoration of one of these lines, according to him will allow TCN to wheel about 400MW of power in that corridor. He noted ongoing efforts to repair and restore the second line on Ugwuaji – Apir on or by Sunday 3rd November 2024. This he said will avail TCN to wheel a substantial quantum of power through Apir to Jos to Kaduna to Kano.
“TCN is working with ONSA for security of personnel and site on Shiroro – Mando 330kV SC lines for commencement of rehabilitation of impacted towers in this axis,” he added.
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