NERC holds public hearing on power grid disturbances

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) held a public hearing with stakeholders in Abuja on Thursday to address power system disturbances.

This comes after Nigeria experienced several power outages due to incessant grid collapses, including two recent incidents on October 14 and 19, and another on October 21 that left the Northern part of the country in darkness.

Chairman of NERC, Mr Sanusi Garba, stressed that the commission considered these disturbances a significant public interest issue.

“Today, we intend to take a deep dive to find a solution to this,” he said, highlighting the impact on generation, distribution companies, and the quality of supply to manufacturers and residential customers.

“The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) attributed the recent outages to equipment failure.

“The largely manual operation of the grid requires cooperation among all stakeholders to tackle system disturbances.”

Executive Director of TCN’s Independent System Operator, Mrs Nafisat Ali, emphasised the need for a holistic approach to addressing challenges in the value chain.

Ali said the hearing featured presentations from representatives of generation and distribution companies, as well as private sector interveners.