Why the grid continues to collapse — TCN

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has revealed that the primary cause of the persistent downtime of the country’s power grid is the failure to sustain a balanced frequency between electricity consumption demand and supply.

In addition to citing the absence of a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system and rotating reserve to regulate the transmission of electricity supply, the report cited inadequate gas, load denial by distribution companies (DiscOs), and ageing infrastructure as contributing factors.

Yesterday in Abuja, during a visit by the Senate Committee on Power to the TCN headquarters, its Executive Director on Independent System Operator, Engr Nafisatu Asabe Ali, stated that because the generation, distribution, and transmission sectors were interconnected, any disruption in one would affect the entire system.

Without a balance between generation and demand, regulating the frequency of electricity output in the value chain of the electricity sector would be ineffective, according to Nafisatu.

She stated, “On that one grid are a number of participants.” An individual who conducts inappropriately has the potential to disrupt the grid. For example, the introduction of a burden onto the system without prior notification of the participants will result in the complete shutdown of the system. In the absence of a SCADA system, determining the initiator or monitoring the power flow becomes a challenging task.

Notwithstanding the difficulties encountered by the grid, she observed that the implementation of the Frequency Load Shedding Scheme enabled it to operate uninterrupted for 421 days.

She continued, “2017 was a terrible year, with fifteen complete collapses and nine partial collapses.” Aside from 2022, when it increased, it began to cascade downward along the line; however, there was a 421-day period in between when no grid collapse was recorded for over a year. How have we been? An under-frequency load shedding scheme was implemented to mitigate this imbalance. The operator of the system operates the scheme non-stop for the duration of twenty-four hours, ensuring that no issues arise.

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AbdulAzeez Sule, the managing director of TCN, had earlier urged the committee to increase its budgetary allocation due to the abandonment of more than one hundred projects that had the potential to enhance the nation’s power situation.

He underscored the criticality of the nation procuring the SCADA system in order to monitor the national infrastructure in an efficient manner.

He revealed that while the World Bank had assured financial support for the system, its completion would require a span of two years.

Minister of Power Adebayo Adelabu, for his part, assured the populace that the power situation in the nation would rapidly improve.

He stated that the federal government was already reimbursing the gas companies for unpaid debts, which he described as the root cause of inadequate electricity production.