Adebayo Adelabu, Minister of Power, has ordered the prompt replacement of outdated equipment as part of the measures to stop the national grid’s constant breakdown.
Adelabu stated that the replacement would be completed in six months.
Adelabu also urged the Transmission Company of Nigeria and all other relevant ministry departments to immediately execute the recommendations of the interagency committee established to solve the electricity sector’s frequent system breakdowns.
The Minister’s marching orders came as the TCN reported a disturbance in the national grid at 11:29 a.m. on Thursday, November 7, 2024, caused by a rapid increase in frequency from 50.33 Hz to 51.44 Hz.
In a statement, Bolaji Tunji, Special Adviser to the Minister on Strategic Communications and Media, quoted the Minister as saying that all relevant agencies in the ministry must prepare for the immediate implementation of the committee’s recommendations, which were submitted on Wednesday, November 6, 2024.
“The recommendations of the committee are far-reaching and will proffer lasting solutions to the incessant power grid collapses that we have embarrassingly witnessed in the country in the immediate and long term,” Bolaji said.
On Wednesday, the investigating panel revealed that a poor maintenance culture, as well as inadequate and ageing equipment, are the root causes of the national power grid’s repeated failures in recent months.
It also included recommendations for one month, six months, and a year.
The short-term (one-month) recommendations include: a review of relaying philosophy and settings, particularly at crucial nodes; capacity development for maintenance/system operations workers; Testing existing equipment at essential nodes to ensure reliability, defining a framework and implementing reliability-centred maintenance, and identifying critical current projects for quick completion (low-hanging fruit).
The recommended six-month goals include strengthening relay coordination, replacing aged and obsolete equipment, improving supervisory control and data acquisition and telecommunication tools, developing a framework to attract private investment across the value chain, deploying IoT devices on generating units and transmission lines, and securing firm gas contracts.
Other recommendations include creating and executing methods to prevent vandalism and energy theft; establishing strategies to reduce transmission loss factor and aggregate technical, commercial, and collection loss; and building human capacity.
Customers of DisCo and GenCo will be able to install harmonics filters, decentralise the TCN central store, impose the Free Governor Mode of Operation, and remove ad-lash taped optic wire.
In its one-year target, the committee recommended enhancing the distribution network and capacity, promoting decentralised grid management, implementing full SCADA and telecommunication upgrades across the network, modernising grid infrastructure (Smart Grid), promoting and adopting the use of the ringfenced network, replacing aged and obsolete equipment, integrating renewable energy resources, replacing ad-lash taped with OPGW, and intensive human capacity development.
