NERC to convene stakeholders meeting on frequent grid disturbances

• Grid restored after third collapse in one week

• TCN blames incident on transformer explosion in Jebba

Jumoke Adelabu – Abuja
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) yesterday announced its plan to conduct an investigative public hearing on the recurring grid disturbances and the attendant nationwide outages.

The country recorded its third grid collapse in one week yesterday following the explosion of the bus section of a current transformer at 330kV Jebba Transmission Substation.

The fault was, however, rectified soon afterward, and electricity supply was restored.

The NERC said in a statement in Abuja that the planned investigative public hearing was to identify the immediate and remote causes of the recurring grid collapse and find a permanent solution.

It said the date and venue of the public hearing would be announced in national dailies.

Stakeholders are encouraged to participate.

It said the repeated grid disturbances have reversed “ many of the gains recently achieved in reducing infrastructure deficit and improving grid stability.’

It said yesterday’s grid collapse was “triggered by an explosion of a current transformer at the Jebba transmission station at 815. a.m. and associated cascade of power plants shutdown arising from the loss of load.”

The commission said that in line with the provisions of the Electricity Act 2023, the unbundling of the System Operator function (ISO) out of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) is in progress and one of its expected gains is that an ISO will engender more discipline in grid management and optimise investment in infrastructure.

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) confirmed later yesterday that the national grid had been restored after the temporary disturbance recorded in the morning.

The grid had gone down from 3,041MW to 187MW by 12:00 noon.

Yesterday’s was the eighth grid collapse recorded in the country so far this year, the first occurring in February 4.

Subsequent ones came on March 28, April 15, July 6, August 5, October 14, and October 15.