07 April 2016, Lagos — Operators in the electricity value chain – generation, transmission and distribution companies are trading blames over the current power crisis, with each blaming the other for the very poor power supply situation witnessed in the last few weeks.
The crisis came to a climax, last week, when there was a complete system collapse for three hours when not even one megawatt of electricity was generated in the country.
Since the year began, there have been three systems collapse, two complete and one partial, even as there was no word of explanation or admonishment from the Ministry of Power or the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC.
Whereas the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, exonerated itself, saying, “we cannot transmit what has not been generated, the generation companies, GENCOs, blame the weak transmission grid for its inability to carry the quantity generated, while the distribution companies, DISCOs, admit they have had to load-shed due to poor allocations.”
Specifically, a top management staff at Egbin Power Plant, Nigeria’s biggest GENCO, who spoke in confidence, noted that what happened was “ground zero transmission and not generation”.
According to him, “what was experienced last week was not a problem from our (GENCO) end but rather from the transmission company, TCN, as we had generated over 3, 766.7megawatt as at March 30.”
But a TCN source, who also pleaded anonymity, said: “The system collapse recorded on March 30, can be attributed to generation companies and not the transmission as widely speculated.
“Since the first quarter of this year, we have recorded a total of three systems collapse – two complete and one partial. This is a grand improvement compared to previous years when we could have over 20 systems collapse. For this development alone, we could say there is a great improvement from our end.”
- Vanguard