Grid collapse: ‘Our equipment is outdated,’ says TCN MD

Sule Abdulaziz, the Transmission Company of Nigeria boss, says there are big problems with the power equipment in Nigeria. He says many of the equipment are very old.

Even so, he thinks Nigeria can have steady electricity everywhere within five years.

Abdulaziz talked about this on a TV show, Sunday Politics, on Channels Television. There, he explained why the power grid keeps failing.

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“The transmission system needs a lot of investment and for so many years in this country that sector has been neglected, Most of the equipment we use is 50 years or 40 years [old]. So it is not possible for those infrastructure to work perfectly.”

To stop future power failures, Abdulaziz says they’ll set up a backup system. This will help prevent big blackouts if the main power grid stops working.

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“Presently, we are doing the scada system for the whole network and it is funded by the World Bank, and the project will take two years to be completed, and now, we have done 70% of the project.”

“Almost a month ago, we were at Gwagwalada (in Abuja) with the World Bank where we celebrated the project. It is 70 percent completed. Once we have the scada system, it will reduce the frequency of getting system disturbances.”

“We are trying to upgrade all our transmission lines,” he said. The government might not have enough money for this, so they’re working with private companies to get funds.

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“The honourable minister is now working with the presidency to have that approval. This is what we call the super grid.”

“By the time we have it, even if there is a fault in one transmission line, you can switch to the one so that we have an alternative but now, the type of grid we have, once we have a problem with the line, you have no other line to switch on to,” he said.