Monday, October 21, 2024 - Abdulaziz, Chief Executive Officer of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), has reiterated that TCN should not be held solely responsible for the frequent national grid collapse in the country. During an interview on Channels TV’s Sunday Politics, Abdulaziz explained that grid collapses could be caused by multiple factors, including issues with generation, transmission, and distribution systems.
"TCN is in charge of the grid but if
there’s a system collapse, it doesn’t mean that all the problems are from
TCN," Abdulaziz said. "It can be from generation, it can be from
transmission, and it can be from distribution. And some of these also can come
as a disaster."
Addressing recent grid failures, Abdulaziz
noted that grid disturbances had occurred twice within the week. "We have
grid disturbances two times. The first one was on Monday and the second one was
yesterday on Saturday," he said.
However, he clarified that reports of
another collapse on Tuesday, October 15, were incorrect. "There are some
news that says that the grid collapsed again on Tuesday. That one is not
correct. On Monday, we were trying to restore the grid, then we had some
setback, and that is when we had to start all over again, but it wasn’t a
collapse."
Abdulaziz acknowledged that the commission
must work harder to prevent frequent collapses but pointed to progress made
since 2015. "But if you look at the records, the grid collapse has reduced
from 2015. If you have all these records, you will see that from the year 2022,
we spent over one and a half years, and there was no grid collapse. So we are
doing our best."
"We know we have to do more, but at
least we are getting to know the issues and we are resolving them one by
one," he added.
The TCN CEO highlighted the need for
substantial investment in Nigeria's transmission infrastructure, which he said
has been neglected for many years. "So, most of the equipment we are
using, some of them are even 50 years old, some 40 years old. So it is not
possible for those equipment to work perfectly," Abdulaziz explained.
He stressed that investment in grid
infrastructure should be continuous, citing the need to replace outdated
equipment. "Continuously, we build new substations, we buy spare parts and
change some of the outdated [equipment]," he said. "You see, it
cannot be done once. It is bit by bit."
Abdulaziz also pointed out that while some
projects are funded by the federal budget, most of TCN's maintenance efforts
are financed through internally generated revenue (IGR). "Most of the
funds we are using is from internally generated revenue. There are some
projects that are sponsored from the federal budget, but most of the
maintenance is carried out by IGR."
He concluded by acknowledging the
challenges of upgrading grid infrastructure, noting that it is not feasible to
upgrade everything simultaneously. "So what we do every year is that we
schedule some maintenance, changing some of the old equipment."
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