Grid Collapse Throws FCT, Neighbouring States, Others Into Blackout

Power transmission system collapse have thrown the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja and its neighboring states into total blackout.

The system collapse which occured about 10.40 am Monday have persisted, compounding crippling of socioeconomic activities worsened by the prevailing fuel scarcity.

This is coming less than 24 hours the Executive Secretary of the Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC), Dr. Joy Ogaji, alleged that the current epileptic power supply was due to mismanagement of the transmission system.

She claimed that what she called “start and stop” directive to power Generating Companies (GenCos) in grid management has knocked down virtually all generating machines.

However, the Abuja Distribution Company (AEDC) which has franchise distribution in Abuja, Nasarawa state, Niger state, and Kogi State, has apologized and appealed to electricity consumers for patience, assuring that efforts were being made to restore the grid.

AEDC terse text reads: “Dear Esteemed Customer, we experienced general outage across AEDC network at 10:40 am today due to a system collapse which occurred on the national grid. Appropriate measures are now being taken to restore normal supply as quickly as possible. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience”.

The blackout is not restricted to Abuja and its neighbouring states as Lagos, Enugu, and other cities across the country experienced a blackout on Monday following the collapse of the national grid.

No fewer than four Distribution Companies (DISCOs) confirmed the development via social media, informing their customers of the situation in their respective domains.

They blamed the outage being experienced by consumers in various states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on a general system collapse that occurred at about 10:40am.

In a statement by its Head of Corporate Communications, Emeka Ezeh, the Enugu Electricity Distribution Plc (EEDC) said it was on standby and awaiting a signal from the National Control Centre (NCC) for restoration of supply.

“The Enugu Electricity Distribution PLC (EEDC) wishes to inform her esteemed customers in the South East of a general system collapse which occurred this morning, Monday, 14th March 2022 at 10:40 am,” Ezeh said.

“This is the reason for the loss of supply currently being experienced across the network. Consequently, all our outgoing feeders are out and supply to our customers in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States are affected by this development.”

On its part, the Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC) assured its customers that it was following up with the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to restore power.

“Dear esteemed customer(s), we regret to inform you of a total system collapse on the national grid at 10:40 am today, leading to outages across our network.

“We are closely monitoring the situation with our TCN partners to determine the cause and a timeline for resolution. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience as we will keep you updated on the situation,” it said.

The Abuja Electricity Distribution Plc (AEDC) and Kaduna Electric also notified their customers about the outage in separate statements -Channels with additional contribution by Optimum Times