A major system collapse at the Egbin power station has
depleted the facility’s electricity production level from 900 megawatts
to 479 megawatts, a top official said on Tuesday, indicating more
troubles for the nation’s faltering power supply.
Current
national generation stands at 2,868.4 megawatts, away from February’s
peak value of 4, 350 megawatts. Nigeria is estimated to require over
10,000 megawatts to guarantee stable electricity across the country
The
News Agency of Nigeria quotes an unnamed official of Egbin station as
saying that a major failure occurred at the plant on Tuesday, reducing
the plant’s output by nearly half.
It is not clear how long the problem will last, and the official gave no further detail of the nature of the failure.
But
NAN quotes Mike Uzoigwe, the Chief Executive Officer of the station, as
saying on Wednesday that there would be more power outages arising from
system collapse during the raining season. He said system collapse was
always rampant during the raining season.
“Heavy rains usually
escalate the problems associated with power generation. And when there
is a fault; it affects some of the lines that link all the stations,
causing instability in the grid, “ Mr. Uzoigwe said.
He said a
fault with one of the stations could affect the national grid due to the
low number of power stations with quality production levels.
According to him, the government needs to build more power stations to bring about stability in the generation of electricity.
“When
there is increase in power generation, a fault in one of the stations
will not lead to collapse of our system,” he said. “That is why
government wants to privatize the power sector. Privatization of the
sector will give room for more people and their monies to build power
stations.”
Egbin is one of Nigeria’s major power generating plants
and has suffered multiple failures and sometimes, shutdown even as the
nation struggles with dismal electricity generation.
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