Why Nigeria’s Power Generation was at Zero Megawatt for Three Hours on Thursday

Officials of the ministry of power, works and housing have attributed the total failure of power generating companies in the country to produce any megawatt of electricity on Thursday to pipeline vandalism and ongoing challenges in the downstream petroleum sector.

Punch reports that power generation fell to zero megawatt at about 12:58pm on Thursday and remained so for the following three hours, citing “the System Operator.”

The System Operator is said to have indicated that 11 electricity distribution companies also received zero load allocation from around 1pm to about 3pm meaning that no part of
Nigeria received power supply from the national grid during the same period.

 An industry operator is quoted to have said: “The power crisis being experienced nationwide since Tuesday this week has worsened on Thursday with a total system collapse at exactly 12.58pm this afternoon. At that point, the nation went to ground zero, with all the Discos receiving zero MW allocation from the System Operator.”
An official of the power ministry who chose to be unnamed, explained that “Aside pipelines vandalism, some miscreants have been involved in the destruction of vital power infrastructure and this has been affecting not just generation but transmission and distribution as well.”

Story: Punch