Nigeria recorded a massive drop in the amount of electricity generated within the country on Sunday, leading to a widespread blackout in the southeast region of the country.
The Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EDDC) announced a system collapse on Sunday, leading to blackouts in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo states.
According to data from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Nigeria’s energy generation crashed by 18.8% on Sunday, 12th June 2022 to 68,856.37 megawatt-hours (MWh) from 84,757.11MWh generated on Saturday, and 78,596.91MWh generated on Friday, 10th June 2022.
Furthermore, the energy supplied to distribution companies nosedived by 18.8% to 67,790MWh compared to 85,524.39MWh that was supplied the previous day. A further look at the data showed that peak generation rose to 3,703MW, while off-peak generation slummed to only 9MW. Also, the highest frequency for the day was 51.17Hz, while the lowest frequency was 48.4Hz.
What EEDC said
According to the Head of Corporate Communications of the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC), Mr. Emeka Ezeh, the system collapse occurred at around 6.49 pm on Sunday, which is only one of the several reported grid collapses recorded so far in the year.
“As a result of this development, all our outgoing feeders are out. This has affected supply to our customers in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo states. We are on standby, awaiting further information on [the] restoration of supply from the National Control Centre (NCC),” he said.
It should be recalled that this is not the first grid shutdown in the year as Nigerians continue to grapple with epileptic power supply. This has greatly affected business operations in the country as businesses are now forced to find alternative sources of electricity to meet up with their daily deliverables.
Despite reports that the country has the capacity to generate 8,000MW of electricity even though it is currently finding it hard to keep production levels above 3,000MW, businesses within the country need to consider solar or fuel-powered sources of electricity if they are to ensure seamless business operations.