Combination Of Challenges Caused Nationwide Blackouts — FG

A combination of challenges is responsible for the deplorable electricity supply situation nationwide, the Federal Government has said.

The Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu, however, said the challenges are being addressed.

The Minister, who spoke to State House Correspondents after the week’s virtual Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, however, said the recent collapse of the national grid, which he identified as one of the challenges causing a nationwide blackout, had been sorted out.

Responding to questions from correspondents, Aliyu noted beside the collapse of the grid, other issues, including scheduled maintenance of facilities, vandalisation of pipelines as well as the disputes around availability gas and payment for gas contracts between gas companies and power generating companies, had contributed to the current power crisis.

“The more reason we are facing the situation now is as a result of the shortage of gas and some of the generators have to go to maintenance.

“It is a scheduled maintenance and it is supposed to be scheduled outage, but we had not envisaged that we will have issues around vandalisation of pipelines, which the NNPC has addressed as you can see evidence everywhere, aviation fuel, and petrol in the filling stations.

“It is a combination of many factors that compounded the problem we are having on the grid.

“We have recovered the grid now. The grid is back and we are trying to get more megawatts to push on the grid. We have set up small committees all geared towards getting more megawatts to put on the grid. Basically, the problem around gas.

“You need to have gas contract between generating companies and gas suppliers- some are form contracts, some are not. We are looking into this and have proffered some solutions in some few days to mature,” he said.

The Minister also clarified the quantity of generated electricity in the country, saying: “We have capacity of 8,000 megawatts – the one on the grid, imbedded and captive. If you combine all of them, you will get these problems that we are encountering. We are on top of the challenge and very soon, we will come out of it”.