The national electricity grid experienced another collapse on Monday evening, plunging several regions into darkness. This latest outage occurred around 6:18 pm, and by 7 pm, power generation had dropped to zero from an earlier 3.87 gigawatts, leaving households and businesses in affected areas without power. The Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) confirmed the system failure, noting that it has led to a complete loss of supply across its network, which serves states including Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo.
The EEDC issued a statement informing customers about the outage, explaining that all Transmission Company of Nigeria stations it connects to had lost supply. Emeka Ezeh, EEDC’s Head of Corporate Communications, mentioned that the company is awaiting further information from the National Control Centre in Osogbo regarding the cause of the collapse and an estimated time for power restoration. Similarly, the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company notified its customers of the disruption, assuring them that efforts were underway with relevant stakeholders to restore stability.
This marks the fifth instance of grid collapse in 2024, prompting widespread concern. Princewill Okorie, Executive Director of the Electricity Consumer Protection Advocacy Centre, expressed frustration over the recurring collapses, particularly in light of recent tariff increases. He also raised concerns that unmetered customers would still be billed during the blackout period, questioning the government’s efforts to address these ongoing reliability issues.
