Frequent national power grid collapse is inevitable— Adebayo,Power Minister

Adebayo Adelabu, the minister of power, says grid collapses are almost inevitable in Nigeria given the deplorable state of the country’s power infrastructure.

The minister also said there is a need to have power grids in different regions or states to put an end to incessant grid collapses. Adelabu said this on Wednesday when he unveiled Hexing Livoltek, an electricity metre manufacturing company in the Lekki area of Lagos State.

According to him, having multiple power grids in each region and state would ensure stability. He noted that the decentralisation of the power sector would help the plan to build grids in each region, saying this was made possible by the Electricity Act signed by President Bola Tinubu in 2023.

“This Electricity Act has decentralised power. It has enabled all the subnational governments, the state government and the local government, to be able to participate in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity,” he said.

“We all rely on a single national grid today; if there is a disturbance of the national grid, it affects all 36 states. It shouldn’t be like that. This will enable us to start moving gradually towards having regional groups and possibly having state grids.

“And each of these grids will be removed and shielded from each other. So, if there’s a problem with a particular grid, only the state where it belongs will be affected, not the entire nation. So, this is one of the impacts this Electricity Act will have.”

Touching more on the grid collapse, he emphasised that the situation would be inevitable without sufficient investment in the sector.

“We keep talking about grid collapse. Grid collapse, grid collapse, whether it’s a total collapse, partial collapse, or slight trip-off. This is almost inevitable as it is today, given the state of our power infrastructure, the infrastructure is in deplorable conditions, so why won’t you have trip-offs?

“Why won’t you have collapses, either total or partial? It will continue to remain like this until we can overhaul the entire infrastructure. What we do now is to make sure that we manage it,” he said.

Adelabu maintained that there was no grid collapse in the last four months until it happened again on Monday.

“In the last four months, we have not heard of any grid collapse, except two days ago when we had a partial collapse that didn’t even last two hours. So, what we work on now is how to improve our response time, to bring it up each time it collapses.

“There are transformers of 60 years old, and 50 years old, and you’re expecting them to perform at the optimal rate? It is not possible. That is why we need a lot of investments in this infrastructure to bring them up to speed, to bring them up to the state that can give us a grid that will not collapse again,” he said.

While unveiling the company, the minister commended the firm for investing so much in Nigeria at a time when some were divesting.

He said the event marked a significant milestone in the journey of the sector towards a more efficient and equitable electricity sector.

The minister explained that the launch of the meter factory represented a key achievement in the ongoing efforts to prioritise local content, foster job creation and reduce Nigeria’s reliance on importation.

Robert Liang, the chief executive officer of Hexing Group, expressed optimism about Hexing’s expansion into Nigeria, calling it a pivotal moment for the company and a commitment to advancing clean energy in the country.

“This is a proud moment for the Hexing Group as we open our branch in Nigeria. It’s more than just an office; it’s a step towards a future where clean energy drives the growth of this great nation,” he said.