Nigerians have been thrown into darkness once again following the collapse of the national power grid, marking the third such incident in just one week.
The repeated power failures have intensified frustrations across the country, as businesses, homes, and critical infrastructure continue to feel the pinch of the nation’s unreliable electricity supply.
The grid collapse occurred early Saturday morning, with many states reporting total blackouts. This latest failure comes on the heels of two other collapses earlier in the week, further straining the already fragile power system.
Data obtained from the Nigerian System Operator’s portal (niggrid.org), revealed that the grid recorded an unprecedented zero Megawatts (MW) as of 8:16 am today.
Data gleaned showed that all 22 generation companies (GenCos) are down as of the time of this report.
This collapse marks the eighth grid disturbance in 2024, adding to challenges that have long plagued Nigeria’s power sector.
Despite the extensive effects of the blackout, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) had yet to confirm the incident as at the time of this report, leaving the public and key stakeholders without information on the cause or resolution of the latest crisis.
On 4 February, Nigeria experienced its first blackout of 2024 when the national grid collapsed at approximately 11:51 am. The TCN-managed grid saw its capacity plummet from 2,407 megawatts to just 31MW by noon, and it completely shut down by 1 pm.
