The national power grid has collapsed for the second time in just two days, leaving citizens across the country grappling with power outages and limited electricity. This latest incident, which occurred around 11:29 a.m. on Thursday, November 7, 2024, marks the 11th collapse of the national grid this year, despite ongoing efforts by authorities to stabilize the system.
Reports show that as of Thursday morning, the 22 power plants contributing to the national grid were only able to generate 2,323 megawatts of electricity. By mid-morning, power generation had dropped to a complete halt at 0.00 megawatts, causing a massive disruption in electricity supply for millions of Nigerians. Earlier in the day, the grid had reached a peak generation level of 3,743 megawatts, but this was not sustained.
The Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IKEDC) confirmed the outage in a message to its customers, stating, “Dear Esteemed Customer, please be informed that we experienced a system outage today, 7 November 2024, at 11:29 hrs, affecting supply within our network. Restoration of supply is ongoing in collaboration with our critical stakeholders. Kindly bear with us.”
While the Transmission Company of Nigeria has yet to provide a detailed update on the cause of this latest collapse, the frequency of these incidents has raised significant concerns. Nigeria’s power infrastructure has struggled over the years, and the grid has reportedly collapsed 10 times in 2024 alone before this recent occurrence.