• Friday, May 17, 2024
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BusinessDay

Blackout worsens as national grid collapses again

Businesses pay more for ‘darkness’ as power outage persists

The national grid has collapsed again, leaving many Nigerians in darkness, with most of the country without electricity.

The system collapsed at about 1pm cutting down electricity from 4,032.80 megawatts at about 12pm to 43 megawatts 1pm and a meagre 303 megawatts at about 5:00 pm.

Most DisCos confirmed that their feeders are out even as the over 22 electricity plants on the grid were all reading zero megawatts as of 5pm going by the data available on the Transmission Company of Nigeria’s System Network.

This comes just four months after the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) blasted the drum to commemorate 400 days of grid stability.

Data on grid collapse showed that in 2013, the country recorded 24 power system collapses. The collapse incidents stood at 13 in 2014. In 2015, the grid collapsed 10 times; in 2016, it rose to 28, while 21 cases were recorded in 2017.

Grid collapse cases in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 were 13, 11, four and four, respectively. It collapsed about 10 times between 2022 and this year.