The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu has apologised for the collapse of the national grid and promised compensation for residents of the 19 northern states affected by the power outage.
The Minister made the apology on Monday while speaking to State House Correspondents after he met with the President on the issue of the disturbance in electricity supply to the northern part of Nigeria and the root cause of the vandalisation of the transmission lines of Shiroro-Kaduna line, which is the major line that supplies electricity to the north, and the transmission Company of Nigeria.
Adelabu disclosed that President Bola Tinubu assured them of his directive to the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu and other security apparatus to provide required security cover for the Transmission Company Staff and other contractors that will fix the damaged line.
Re-assuring the Transmission Company’s readiness to restore electricity in the affected States, the Minister expressed optimism that the power outage will be fixed.
“We discussed the root cause of this, which was basically due to vandalisation of the transmission lines of Shiroro Kaduna line, which is the major line that supplies electricity to the north, and the transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, they already set out to fix this line.
“What they have asked for, which has been provided to them now is the security cover of the National Security Advisor through the chief of public staff and Chief of Air Staff to enable them to restore the damaged land. And we are optimistic that very soon this will be fully restored.”
Speaking on plans to compel service providers to compensate customers who have suffered blackouts in the affected states, the Minister of power promised to meet with the DISCOS and the Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission NERC to ensure compensation for all categories of customers within the period.
“Yes, what we are working on like I’m going to have a meeting with the chairman of NERC, and all the DISCOs, for those days during which they suffered blackout there should not be billing of any sort, for any customer, be it household, customer of the office consumer or industrial consumer, they will be immune for billing for those periods.”
Alternative Electricity Lines
He further disclosed that the federal government is seeking alternative lines to provide electricity to the north through the Ikot-Ekpene substation supplied from the Calabar plant.
“We have also explored the alternative line of providing light to the north through the Ikot Ekepene substation supplied from the Calabar plant, but the line got caught along the line, and we are also trying to fix that. And if you remember at the last FEC one of the approvals for the Ministry of Power was the upgrade of the Shiroro Kaduna transmission line, which is the major line that supplies electricity to the northern part of the country.
“We already have approval for this. It is one of the oldest transmission lines that we have in Nigeria, and we believe that it requires an upgrade. And through the magnanimity of Mr president and the Federal Executive Council, we got approval to fix the line permanently. Once this is done, I believe that power to the North will be more stable than we’re experiencing right now.” Adelabu added.
The Minister of Power also disclosed that the federal government has received major investment interests from contractors and financiers to install 100 megawatts each for each of the 20 northern states, thereby supplying uninterrupted, functional, stable and reliable electricity to the northern part of Nigeria through its distributed power model.
He added that this initiative will be facilitated through an embedded utility, solar scale source, thereby increasing supply from the initial source to 50 megawatts and then upgrading to 100 megawatts.
Adelabu added that these would enable the 20 states to be insulated and immune from each other while also recording progress in electricity supply in the region.
“All the 20 states will be insulated and immune from each other, actually made progress in this as we have interested contractors and financiers that are ready to install 100 megawatts each for each of the 20 northern states, which is scalable to 50 megawatts at first, then upgraded to 100 megawatts. But before I end this, let me also state that the world is moving this is the 21st century, and we believe that the most effective way of supplying uninterrupted, functional, stable and reliable electricity to the northern part of Nigeria is through our distributed power model, whereby each of the northern states will have an embedded utility, solar scale, solar source.
“When we have this the power supply to the North will be reliable because of the advantage of sun that they have, where solar will be highly effective. The lowest number of hours that a state in the north enjoys in terms of sunshine is 10 hours. And once you have this, we believe that the pressure on the national grid from the northern part of Nigeria will be lower, and our people will be able to enjoy better suppliers,” the Minister added.
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