DisCos have sent messages explaining the challenge to customers.

Nigerians on Tuesday lamented the national power grid collapse that has yet again resulted in epileptic power supply and poor business operations.

On Monday, the national power grid collapsed for the second time in a period of one month, throwing many households and businesses in parts of Nigeria into darkness.

The collapse occurred around noon on Monday, according to information sourced from the electricity distribution companies.

Earlier on July 28, the grid had suffered a total collapse, which the Transmission Company of Nigeria attributed to the loss of 611 megawatts at two power stations.

Jude Okonkwo, a Lagos-based business owner, lamented the impact of the collapse on his business, calling on the government to find a lasting solution to the incessant grid collapse.

“This is almost becoming a monthly occurrence and it is not good for business and the economy at all,” he told PREMIUM TIMES in an interview Tuesday morning.

Another Lagos resident who declined to have his name in print lamented the impact of the blackout on households and business operations in parts of the country.

“This is very bad. The power is poor already now it’s a complete blackout,” he said.

The national grid is managed by the Transmission Company of Nigeria but suffers incessant system collapse due to what experts described as poor infrastructure.

Discos beg customers

Meanwhile, against the backdrop of the blackout and complaints from customers, many of the power distribution countries sent messages to customers pleading to them to exercise patience.

Kaduna Electric, for instance, explained the cause of the blackout and assured customers that power would be restored.

“We sincerely apologise for the power outage in our franchise states which is due to a system collapse from the national grid,” the company said.

“Supply shall be restored as soon as the grid is back up.”

Eko Electricity Distribution Company, in a message to its customers on its Facebook page, said that it is working with the Transmission Company of Nigeria to restore supply.

“We regret to inform you of a system collapse on the national grid that’s causing outages across our network,” it said.

“We are working with our TCN partners to restore supply as soon as possible. Please bear with us.”

“TCN restores power grid”

Meanwhile, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) says it has restored the national power grid.

TCN’s General Manager Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah, made this known in a statement in Abuja on Tuesday, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.

Mrs Mbah said the incident followed a sudden drop in system frequency from 50.18Hz to 47.63Hz which caused system instability and consequently the collapse of a part of the national grid.

She said: “However, the partial system disturbance did not affect parts of the grid such as Afam Complex, Alaoji, Ikot Ekpene, Odukpani, and Calabar axis.

“This means that electricity supply to these areas was not interrupted by the incident.

“According to reports from the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) readings and some substations, control panel readings by System Operators showed that some units from a particular generating station tripped suddenly.”

The general manager said the tripping caused an initial loss of 402 megawatts (MW) of electricity from the grid network.

“This caused a destabilising imbalance which further caused the pulling out a total of 3,560MW from the grid that finally collapsed part of the national grid,” she stated.

Mrs Mbah said that TCN commenced the immediate recovery of the grid at 1:19 p.m. through Shiroro Generating Station and almost immediately restored electricity to the Abuja axis.

She said the Alaoji-Onitsha axis was restored at about the same time as Abuja, while the Shiroro-Mando axis, on the other hand, was restored by 3:42 p.m.

According to her, by 6.57 p.m. on Monday, the national grid was fully recovered and operational.

“TCN appreciates the kind understanding of government and electricity consumers within the affected areas as it is consistently executing projects geared towards putting in place a very robust grid.

“It is equally pursuing a nationwide SCADA implementation that would further contribute to grid stability,” she added.