Victor EzejaFormer Chairman of the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Dr Sam Amadi, has blamed the incessant collapse of the national power grid on poor management of the system.
His comment comes on the heel of recent collapses witnessed in the national power grid. The system has collapsed two times in the last four days, throwing many parts of the country into blackout. Nigeria has recorded not less than 10 times of grid collapse in 2024.
Join our WhatsApp Channel“Too many collapses (grid) suggests there is weak management,” Amadi stated in an interview on Arise News.
Amadi, who stated that the frequent collapses of the grid in recent times suggests something is wrong with the management of the system, underscored the need for what he called “pro-active management.”
He said the problem could be either from the capacity of the grid or Distribution companies that receive and distribute to customers.
Highlighting the need for quick proactive management, Amadi suggested that the Federal Government should have a Taskforce on power, made up of individuals with technical competence whose duty would be to periodically scan the power network both at generation, transmission and distribution levels to identify and resolve avoidable issues that could lead to grid collapse.
He said the authorities can have a short term, medium term and long term plans to manage the system.
“You have a short term, medium term and long term. Short term is, you can optimise what we have now without additional investment. If you are doing average of six hours across board not just band A, if you optimise better management, more proactive management, stronger focused management, you can increase up to six more hours. If you have average of three collapses in a year, without more investments, you can reduce to one with greater managerial capability,” Amadi emphasised.
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According to him, while the short-term plan focuses on optimising managerial capacity to minimise grid collapses, long-term plan can be on investment into redesigning the grid.
While experts attribute the frequent grid collapses to weak power infrastructure that needs overhaul, the Transmission Company of Nigeria and the minister of power have on some occasions blamed it on DisCos rejecting load allocated to them.
While admitting that investing in upgrade of power infrastructure is one of the pathways to resolving electricity crisis in Nigeria, the former NERC chairman insisted that efficient management is key to resolving the problem.
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“The managerial efficiency is very poor in the power sector. So, there is a case for investment, increase assets, upgrade and remove bad the networks, but there is also a case for increase in technical supervision, which is the reason why you plan the network, preempt these frailties, avoid them and have minimal downtime because you are managing better. People talk about oh, you need N100 billion investments in the sector a year; that’s good but also you need upgrade in human capability, and better leadership of the sector.”
Amadi further said the government can create an effective regulation that sets a performance benchmark for DisCos, and penaliSe them for failure to achieve it by way of dilution or takeover by a more competent investor to ensure efficiency.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has ordered immediate implementation of recommendations made by a committee formed by the FFederal Government to investigate the causes of national grid collapse.
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with six years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Masters degree in Mass Communication.
