Blackout across Nigeria as electricity grid collapses over fire outbreak

The recent improvement in electricity generation seems to have been short-lived following a reported case of fire outbreak at the Escravos Lagos Pipeline System near Okada, Edo State, belonging to the Nigerian Gas Processing and Transportation Company Ltd (NGPTC).

This has led to the shutdown of the pipeline supplying gas to Egbin 1,320MW; Olorunsogo NIPP 676MW, Olorunsogo 338MW, Omotosho NIPP 450MW, Omotosho 338 MW and Paras 60MW power stations.

Consequently, power transmission was altered resulting in a total blackout in almost all the states across Nigeria.

At about 8:20 pm on Tuesday, January 2, 2018, there were reported cases of the sudden trip off of electricity in nine states, and other states were also said to have been affected.

The Ministry of Power, Works, and Housing, in a statement, blamed the incident on the sudden loss of generation due to an interruption in gas supply from these stations, thus causing the national transmission grid to trip off when it did.

It regretted that this came after a sustained period of increasing production and distribution of power since September 2017 to date.

It explained that: “Most of Nigeria’s power generation is from thermal power stations that require gas for fuel. The gas is produced by oil and gas companies overseen by the Ministry of Petroleum Resources. The gas is delivered to the power stations through pipelines owned and operated by Nigerian Gas Processing and Transportation Company Ltd (NGPTC), a subsidiary of Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).”

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) had recently, announced an increase in the national peak level from 5,155.9MW to 5,222.3MWs.

According to a statement issued by the General Manager, Public Affairs, Ndidi Mba in Abuja, she attributed the increase to the strategies put in place by of the Federal Government FG to growing the Power Sector, in line with its policy on incremental power.

However, the Federal Government (FG) has assured that the TCN and the generation companies are working to restore operation of the national grid.

It said: “Once the national grid is restored output from the hydroelectric power stations and all other unaffected gas-fired thermal power stations will be increased to the extent possible to minimize the impact of the loss of generation from the affected power stations while NNPC takes necessary steps to restore gas supply.

“We urge members of the public to bear with us as we work to overcome this set back which should be temporary.”