When the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) announced on December 11 that the national grid had collapsed for the umpteenth time, leading to another power outage little did we know that it would be long- drawn. The power supply dropped drastically from 4,032.80 megawatts as at 12 pm to a meagre 303 mega- watts as at 5pm on that day. Thereafter, many of the nation’s 11 Distribution Companies (DisCos) revealed that their feeders were reading zero megawatts! With this taking place four months after the TCN blasted the drum to commemorate 400 days of grid stability means that urgent steps should be taken to address the clearly avoidable situation.

Over the years power outage has led to serious disruptions to several socio-economic activities. Daily engagements such as water supply, cook- ing, ironing of clothes and watching of television programs have been crippled, leading to the use of diesel and petrol-powered generators. In all of these, more misery has been visited on the people at a perilous period of the largely unexpected cash crunch and high inflation rate. Worse still, coming up at the popular Christmas and New Year celebrations, the year is grinding to a close on a sad note. It would be recalled that the epileptic power challenge has been a recurring ugly decimal worsening over the past decade.

For instance, back in 2013, national power outages took place 24 times. Subsequently, in 2014 it was 13 times and it reared its head again 10 times in 2015. In 2016 it escalated to 28 times and dropped to 21 times in 2017. In the years of 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 power outages happened 11, 13, four and four times in that order. In explaining what caused the power out- age as reported on September 14, 2023 the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, said that a transmission line connecting two power plants in Niger State suffered an explosion after a fire outbreak, tripping the grid.

Incidentally in 2014, the TCN had attributed a power supply disruption experienced in some parts of Benin City and its environs was caused by a two meter snake trapped in transformer T23 at the Benin switchyard. It said the snake put Nek- pennekpen, Ikpoba dam and Akoko feeders out of power supply. But this still leave other questions to answer as the root causes of erratic power supply and the solutions to it. Power outage is traceable to dilapidated energy infrastructure whereby both the distribution and transmission equipment are of low quality. The situation is worrisome in a country where 83.98 million people, representing 46.09 % are connected to the national grid.

In fact, the theoretical maximum amount of power supply in Nigeria is as low as 12,500 megawatts but only a meagre 25% of this is distributed. That is according to a Reuters’ news agency report. This is abysmal compared to that of South Africa that generates 58, 095 MW for a population of 59.39 million. And also to that of Ghana that generates 5,134MW for a population of 32.83 million. Good enough, the latter generates power from hydro-power, fossil fuel (thermal energy) and renewable sources such as wind and solar power.

That brings us to the sustainable solutions for steady electric power supply with regards to Nigeria’s situation. Incidentally, the nation’s renewable energy sources include wind, solar, biomass, hydro and geothermal. They should be harnessed to meet the electric energy shortfall. There is even a local company, QuadLoop that is turning electronic wastes into solar lanterns. Government should key into such innovations. Also, effective government policies should be put in place to upgrade power transmission and distribution equipment, with more emphasis on distribution infrastructure.

The default billing system adopted by the then National Electric Power Authority, (NEPA) still in use should be done away with. It should outlaw electric gadgets and devices that waste power supply. It is obvious that much more ought to have been done to sort out the critical matter. Considered from different perspectives, we need to capitalise on the vast natural resources available to us to generate steady electric power. We should learn from South Africa and Germany that utilise coal, which we have in abundance in Kogi and Enugu states to generate power.

We also need the political will to tackle all the bottlenecks, especially manmade, and exploring sustainable and cost effective Public Private Partnership (PPP) in order to succeed in triumphing over the hydra headed monster of epileptic power supply across the country.

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