Minister of Power Identifies Poor Maintenance and Overloaded Equipment as Causes of National Grid Failures

The Federal Government has identified poor maintenance culture, outdated equipment, and other underlying issues as key factors contributing to the frequent collapses of Nigeria’s national grid in recent months. It was also revealed that blackouts on October 14 and 19, 2024, were caused by high voltage electricity exceeding the capacity of the grid’s equipment.

Nafisatu Asabe Ali, the chairperson of the investigative committee tasked with probing the grid failures, shared these findings during the presentation of the report at the Ministry Headquarters in Abuja on Wednesday.

This announcement came just one day after the national grid experienced its 10th collapse of the year, following another breakdown on Tuesday.

Ali explained that the committee’s investigation into the grid failures on October 14 and 19 found that damage to lightning arrestors at the Jebba and Oshogbo transmission stations, along with the explosion of a current transformer (CT) at the Jebba Station, were the primary causes of the outages. The committee also noted that similar issues were affecting other power stations across the country.