The Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, has assured Nigerians that electricity supply will begin to improve within 48 to 72 hours as the Federal Government moves to tackle challenges affecting power generation and transmission across the country.
Tegbe said the recent outages in parts of the country were largely caused by maintenance activities at Egbin Power Station in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest thermal power plant, which contributes about 16 per cent of electricity to the national grid.
The minister gave the assurance in a statement titled ‘Update on Power Situation’, shared on his Facebook page on Friday.
“I am aware of the strain that the current outages have placed on households and businesses in four affected states, including Lagos and the Federal Capital Territory.
“Planned maintenance at Egbin Power Station and constraints in gas supply to some thermal power stations have reduced the amount of electricity available on the national grid.
Grid operators have, therefore, implemented load shedding in some areas to manage the shortfall,” he said.
He further explained that the sabotage of critical transmission lines had limited the availability of alternative routes for electricity supply, particularly to Lagos.
Tegbe said the ministry was collaborating with relevant operators to gradually restore affected generating units, address gas supply challenges and speed up the repair of damaged infrastructure.
“My team and I are working to return the affected generating units to service in phases, with the first units coming back online within the next 48 to 72 hours.
“We are also working with operators to improve gas supply and accelerate repairs to the damaged infrastructure,” he added.
The assurance comes amid growing frustration among electricity consumers in Lagos and Ogun states over prolonged blackouts, with residents complaining that the outages have worsened the discomfort caused by the prevailing hot weather.
Meanwhile, the electricity crisis has sparked a dispute between the Transmission Company of Nigeria and Ikeja Electric over the causes of recent power interruptions.
TCN, in a statement on Friday, rejected Ikeja Electric’s claim that outages recorded on November 3 and 4 resulted from grid instability, blaming instead inadequate gas supply to thermal power plants and reduced hydroelectric generation for the decline in available electricity.
The transmission company described the explanation by Ikeja Electric as inaccurate and misleading, accusing the distribution company of wrongly attributing generation-related shortages to the transmission network.
“TCN can only transmit the energy made available to it and cannot transmit energy that is not generated,” the company said.
TCN also stated that the Nigerian Independent System Operator had not identified any transmission network failure as the cause of the outages.
According to the transmission company, 68 per cent of interruptions on feeders serving Ikeja Electric were caused by frequency-control load shedding resulting from low power generation.
It attributed another 26 per cent to Ikeja Electric’s alleged failure to comply with load allocations, alongside faults and maintenance activities on its distribution network.
The remaining six per cent, TCN said, were due to its planned maintenance, switching operations and line limitations.
The disagreement followed Ikeja Electric’s apology to customers on some Band A feeders for failing to meet the minimum daily electricity supply requirement of 20 hours on November 3 and 4.
In a related development, Tegbe had on Thursday blamed the power disruptions on maintenance and operational challenges in the sector, gas shortages at thermal power stations and lower output from hydropower plants.
He said the Federal Government was engaging the TCN, NISO and electricity distribution companies to resolve the challenges and restore normal electricity supply.
