Kainji and Jebba power plants have incurred approximately N30.5 billion in losses due to frequent grid failures from 2022 to 2024, primarily attributed to the ongoing instability of Nigeria's national grid.
The latest incident occurred last Thursday, marking the 11th collapse this year, which has severely disrupted business operations and impacted livelihoods across the nation.
Stakeholders, including consumers and the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), have expressed their frustrations regarding the economic ramifications of these outages.
The Federal Government has pointed to various causes for these collapses, including vandalism of electricity infrastructure, such as transmission towers and transformers, alongside outdated equipment in transmission substations. Contributing factors include aging facilities, inadequate maintenance, insufficient investment, and alleged sabotage by unidentified groups.
Power generation companies have also voiced concerns about the detrimental effects of these grid failures on their operations.
A recent report highlighted that Kainji and Jebba, two of Nigeria's highest-generating plants, reported significant financial losses due to system collapses, instability, and unplanned outages.
In 2022 alone, these plants lost 149,524 megawatts per hour, resulting in N2.38 billion in losses. This figure surged by 164.7% to N6.3 billion in 2023, with losses escalating further in 2024 to N21.87 billion due to an energy loss of 356,759 megawatts per hour.
The document detailing these losses also noted extensive damage to hydropower infrastructure from grid collapses, including critical equipment destruction and increased operational costs stemming from necessary repairs and maintenance disruptions.
Joy Ogaji, CEO of the Association of Power Generation Companies, emphasized that the ongoing grid failures pose a significant threat to Nigeria's power sector.
She stated that frequent disruptions lead to equipment damage and substantial revenue losses for generation companies (GenCos).
Ogaji called for urgent reforms to improve infrastructure and enforce maintenance protocols to enhance the sector's reliability.
