LAGOS – Nigeria’s electricity grid collapsed on Thursday, with power to Africa’s most populous country cut to all consumers, electricity providers said, reported German news agency (dpa).
Attributing the outage to a fire, Energy Minister Adebayo Adebulu said on Thursday that the fire had been contained and that power had been restored to around half of the country.
The rest would soon follow, he added.
Oil-rich Nigeria’s power supply is erratic, with average daily production of 4,100 megawatts, well below the demand of 30,000 megawatts.
The country of more than 220 million residents is unable to cover demand, partly because of poor maintenance at power stations and partly through lack of investment. Grid breakdowns are frequent, with the authorities attributing these to technical problems.
Thursday’s national power outage was the first this year, after the gird went down eight times last year.
Many homes and businesses have installed generators to cope with the outages. – Bernama
