Some parts of Nigeria were thrown into darkness in the early hours of Monday as the national power grid collapsed, marking the sixth occurrence in 2024.
According to data from the Nigerian System Operator’s portal (niggrid.org), there was an unprecedented zero Megawatts (MW) recorded at 2:00 am, with only 52.3MW generated by 7:10 am the same day.
Power Distribution Companies (DisCos) said the sudden and prolonged outage was been tackled to restore power.
Jos DisCo confirmed the collapse in a statement:
“The current outage being experienced within our franchise States is a result of loss of power supply from the national grid.
“The loss of power supply from the national grid occurred in the early hours at about 0242Hours of today, Monday, 15th April 2024, hence the loss of power supply on all our feeders.”
Dr. Friday Adakole Elijah, the company’s head of Corporate Affairs, expressed hope for the prompt restoration of the grid to ensure normal power supply to customers.
DisCos Struggling to Satisfy Band A Customers
The electricity distribution company said it has struggled to meet up with the required supply hours for Band A customers, due to shortage of gas. Note that Band A customers enjoy a minimum of 20 hours of power supply daily.
Following the recent 300% tariff hike, some Band A customers expressed dissatisfaction over the failure to meet the 20-hour minimum supply. Some even requested to be downgraded to other bands.