A nationwide power outage struck Nigeria at 10 am due to a fire at a power station, affecting all 36 states and the capital, Abuja, leaving over 200 million people without electricity.
According to Al Jazeera, the incident initially brought the country's power generation to zero, later recovering to only 237 MW, significantly below the daily average of 4100 MW.
The Enugu Electricity Distribution Company, responsible for supplying power to the southeastern part of Nigeria, described it as a "complete system collapse." The country's Energy Minister later stated that more than half of the connections had been restored, with the rest expected to be fully operational "in the shortest possible time."
The Guardian reported that the "poor management" of the state-owned Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), responsible for the national power grid, was the root cause of the system's collapse. The publication highlighted ongoing issues such as privatization practices, corruption, infrastructure problems, and other shortcomings despite over $7.5bn in investments in the TCN over the past decade.
Nigeria, a major oil and gas producer, faces unstable electricity supply. While the country has a capacity of 12.5 thousand MW, it produces only about a quarter of this. The majority of energy is generated by thermal and hydroelectric power stations. Less than 50% of Nigeria's population has regular access to electricity, according to BBC.
In 2022, Nigeria's power grid experienced at least four outages, with authorities attributing them to technical malfunctions.
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