Power outage rises as generation plunges from 3,840mw to less than 500mw

Nigeria’s electricity generation plunged to less than 500 megawatts on Monday from about 3,840 megawatts in the morning, triggering outages in parts of Africa’s most populous nation.

The grid operator said the national network had not collapsed.

Total generation on the grid fell to 476.70MW by 1 p.m. in Lagos, data from the Nigerian Independent System Operator’s portal, niggrid.org, showed.

The figure is about 88 percent below the level recorded at 7 a.m. and represents a loss of more than 3,300MW.

Output held relatively steady through the morning before dropping abruptly around 12:40 p.m., leaving the vast majority of the country’s power plants reporting zero generation.

At the 3pm. reading, only a handful of stations were feeding electricity into the grid, including Odukpani NIPP, Omotosho and Sapele, and each contributed only small amounts.

Major plants, including Egbin, Jebba, Shiroro and Kainji, recorded no output, as did several gas-fired facilities.

By 1:23 p.m., the NISO dashboard showed real-time generation of about 480MW, with only five generating companies producing electricity.

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Consumers took to social media to report interruptions between about 12:45 p.m. and 1:20 p.m., though the full geographic extent of the outages wasn’t immediately clear.

The scale of the drop raised fresh concerns about the stability of the national electricity system, which serves a population of more than 200 million and is a persistent constraint on households and businesses.

The operator pushed back on suggestions of a systemic failure.

A senior NISO official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the grid was not experiencing a disturbance.

“There is no disturbance at the moment,” the official said. “Probably if something is happening, maybe it is a local issue, but there is nothing on the grid.”

The official added that temporary outages or minor tripping in certain areas didn’t necessarily amount to a national grid collapse.

Monday’s episode adds to a run of grid disturbances and collapses this year that have undermined confidence in the reliability of power supply to homes and businesses.

Such events typically see generating units trip offline in quick succession, forcing the operator to restore supply in stages.

The Federal Government recently approved plans to develop new eastern and western power grids as part of efforts to address recurring failures and improve system stability. Details of the timeline and financing weren’t included in the information available on Monday.