Nigeria faces third nationwide blackout in one week as power grid collapses again

Nigeria’s fragile electricity grid experienced another collapse on Saturday morning, plunging the country into a nationwide blackout.

This marks the third collapse in just one week and the eighth recorded this year.

According to data from the National System Operator, part of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), power supply on Saturday morning was 3,041.72 MW at 8 a.m., but within an hour, it plummeted to just 47 MW, with only the Azura-Edo Independent Power Plant (IPP) contributing to the grid. On Friday, the grid had reached a peak supply of 4,807.2 MW, while the lowest supply was 4,011.27 MW.

The national grid confirmed on its social media platform, X (formerly known as Twitter), that seven of the nation’s eleven electricity distribution companies had zero load allocation during the outage. The few companies that had power—Benin DisCo (70 MW), Ibadan DisCo (60 MW), Ikeja DisCo (30 MW), and Eko DisCo (20 MW)—were operating with minimal supply as of 10:16 a.m.

The Transmission Company of Nigeria had reported on Friday that two of its 330kV transmission towers along the Shiroro-Kaduna lines were vandalized. This caused a trip in one transmission line, followed by another shortly afterward. Local vigilantes were dispatched to patrol the lines, and the damage was traced to towers T133 and T136, which had suffered severe cable damage.

Efforts are being made to deploy an emergency restoration system to the affected areas while the damaged towers are rebuilt.

“TCN has also conducted an aerial survey in collaboration with security operatives, given the area’s vulnerability to banditry, which poses a significant threat to both TCN installations and personnel.

“In the interim, our engineers have implemented a temporary measure to supply bulk power to the Kaduna and Kano regions via the 330kV Kaduna – Jos transmission line.

“The vandalized Shiroro – Kaduna 330kV lines 1&2 are vital lines through which bulk power is transmitted to parts of the North West region, with each line capable of carrying 600MW. The vandalism of the towers and transmission lines presents a significant challenge to bulk power transmission in that axis. We are however committed to re-erecting the towers and restringing the transmission lines to restore bulk power transmission through both 330kV power transmission lines”, the statement by Ndidi Mbah, the General Manager, Public Affairs stated.