The federal government has explained reasons why the national grid collapsed twice within a space of two days saying it has now been recovered.
The minister of power, Abubakar Aliyu, disclosed this on Wednesday after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by the vice president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo.
According to him, several resolutions have emerged from a series of emergency meetings held by the power ministry, where all stakeholders have extensively discussed the issues and resolved all bickering
He likened Nigeria’s power challenge to a war situation, saying the country generates up to 8,000 MW.
He said the shortage of gas and maintenance of generators, the fuel situation all combined to exacerbate the problem with the national grid.
The power minister equally affirmed that the FEC has given approval of N5 billion to open up and expand Lagos/Ogun, to reinforce power supply to that region.
He said, “The more reason we are facing the situation now is as a result of the shortage of gas and some of the generators have to go to maintenance.
“It is a scheduled maintenance and it is supposed to be scheduled outage but we had not envisaged that we will have issues around vandalization of pipelines which the NNPC has addressed as you can see evidently everywhere, aviation fuel, and petrol in the filling stations. It is a combination of many factors. That compounded the problem we are having on the grid.
“We have recovered the grid now. The grid is back and we are trying to get more mega watts to push on the grid. We have set up small committees all geared towards getting more mega watts to put on the grid. Basically, the problem around gas.
“You need to have gas contract between Generating companies and gas supplies- some are form contracts, some are not. We are looking into this and have proffered some solutions in some few days to mature.
“We have capacity of 8,000 megawatts – the one on the grid, imbedded and captive. If you combine all of them, you will get these problems that we are encountering. We are on top of the challenge and very soon, we will come out of it.
“We have gotten approval now of N5billion from FEC to open up and expand – Lagos/Ogun where presently, they may not be enjoying quality electricity. We need to do this more.”
On assurance from the ministry of petroleum Resources and NNPC that there will be sustained supply of gas even when you recover the grid, he said “Yes, that was why I told you I called for the emergency meeting that very day. Before that day, we have problem around PI One.
As a typical example, we lost over 300 megawatts, and they were able to repair that pipeline. The PI came back on the grid. We have P2 Two, which we’re talking around it. The work has also started on it.
So, there are so many things we are doing. And I told you we were on top of it, and inshaAllah we’ll talk about the one that has been resolved.
Asked whether the N1trillion debt crisis owed to generation companies has been resolved, he said “I think I’ve spoken all round. On gas issue, this should be one of them. So, we are trying to solve all the problems. For instance, just last time, I told you the debts owed by the government to distribution companies.
I told you we are paying that. We are paying around N40 billion. The remaining balance is being reviewed by consultants to come out with exact figure.
So, something is being done about that. And regarding the GENCOs and the gas suppliers, this is another issue between them and our obligation to the GENCOs is being looked at and we are working on that seriously,” he added
