The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu made this known on Monday while speaking to State House Correspondents on the exploration of alternative electricity lines and tackling root causes of vandalised transmission lines of Shiroro Kaduna line.
Adelabu further disclosed that the government is also currently working to revamp sub-stations and transformers adding that the entire infrastructure cannot all be changed overnight.
According to the Minister, “We have old infrastructure. We have a national grid that is more than 50 years old. We have a national grid whose transmission lines are weak, the towers are falling and the substations and the transformers are old. In fact, the transfer that actually exploded in Jebba was 47 years old. We’ve been trying to revamp this to change them, but they cannot all be changed overnight.
“So it’s like you’re having a rickety car. You’ll be expecting a breakdown once in a while. What we continue to do is to manage the grid to prevent frequent occurrence of the grid disturbance, until we’re able to completely overhaul the grid itself, then we’ll have a reliable grid.
“Secondly, we are working on establishing what is called a super grid, which is a backup of failover, optional grid. If the national grid has a problem, there will be an alternative route through which power can be transmitted. That is what we are working on.” He added.
The Minister emphasized that Nigeria is also gradually moving towards regionalizing the grid thereby commissioning the state grid to ensure each grid is insulated from each other.
He added that until this is done the nation would keep managing its national grid but reduce the frequent occurrence of the grid collapse.
“Then lastly is the fact that the world has moved beyond having a centralized grid. Grid must be regionalized. We must have state grids so that each of the grid will be insulated from each other so that a problem in a particular line will not affect others. That is what we are working on. Until that is done, we believe that we’ll keep managing what we have and reduce the frequent occurrence of the great disturbance.”
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