The Nigerian Independent System Operator has stated that as the Federal Government steps up efforts to stabilise the national grid through planned outages, electricity consumers may experience blackouts throughout the nation.
This comes as at least six states in the North-East remain without electricity due to an ongoing outage coordinated by the Transmission Company of Nigeria to enable critical transmission infrastructure upgrades.
The Managing Director of the Nigerian Independent System Operator, Abdu Mohammed, disclosed in a video statement released on Wednesday, saying the ongoing blackout in Borno, Taraba, Adamawa, and Yobe states was part of a broader nationwide maintenance project that would affect other regions in due course.
The explanation follows public outcry after the Transmission Company of Nigeria commenced construction of a turn-in-turn-out along the 330kV Jos-Bauchi-Gombe transmission line to connect the new Bauchi 330kV transmission substation to the grid.
Mohammed said, “The outage in the northeastern states is a planned one, for infrastructure improvements by the Transmission Company of Nigeria and a planned outage to improve services that would be provided for these states, especially from Borno, Taraba, Adamawa, and Yobe.
“That axis has been witnessing a little bit of poor supply over the period. However, the TCN has been working to improve supply; as such, there is a turn-in and turn-out project that they are going to implement, and that is why we have the outage from Tuesday to Saturday that would enable TCN to complete the project, and there would be improved supply within that axis.
“It has become very necessary to have this project executed at this particular time, to make sure that the power supply within that axis is drastically improved. It is an ongoing project that other areas would also benefit from.”
