The electricity grid continued its fluctuation as it dropped to 3,656 megawatts (MW) yesterday after it attained 4,345mw on Wednesday, a report has shown.
The daily industry statistics on electricity generation and transmission from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) shows that a difference of 689mw was lost to the drop in a generation.
Although the peak generation reached over 4,300mw on July 19, 2017, it dropped the same day to 1,191mw. The data further proved that the peak generation attained did not last much that day as 79,106 megawatt hour (mwh) was sent out for distribution to electricity customers.
It also showed slight fluctuation in the transmission frequency to a point of 50.80 Hertz (Hz) which could result in partial or total system collapse and capable of throwing the entire country or a section into darkness for hours.
TCN had repeatedly said that the transmission system can only be sustained when generation output is above 3,500mw. It had also noted that any frequency greater than 50Hz may cause a frequency issue in the electricity network.
Meanwhile another report for last Tuesday showed that 2,316mw of power was left unutilised in the grid due to constraints still weighing heavily on inadequate gas supply and frequency issues.
The gas constraint affected six power plants with their nine turbines unable to produce 1,031mw. Geregu, Alaoji and Omotosho plants under the National Integrated Power Projects (NIPP) lost out 505mw from four turbines. Omotosho Gas, Olorunsogo Gas and Afam VI had five idle turbines that could not generate 526mw due to unavailability of gas to power the plants.
Another 1,062mw was lost to frequency management issues which the TCN report said was caused by the DisCos’ load demand.
Experts in the power industry had refer to this most times as ‘Load Rejection’, a situation where some of the 11 Distribution Companies (DisCos) shutout their feeders to hinder power from reaching their distribution stations in certain areas.
This affected nine power stations and 13 turbines: the NIPP plants comprising Ihovbor, Olorunsogo, Omotosho and Geregu lost 617mw from five turbines. The other plants which lost 445mw from eight turbines were Jebba hydro, Delta-Ughelli, Omotosho Gas, Geregu Gas, and Olorunsogo Gas.
There was also the loss of 222mw to constraints bothering on transmission line in over four turbines across three power plants. Paras, Gbarain NIPP and Olorunsogo Gas were affected.
