POOR ELECTRICITY: TCN Blames GENCOs, DISCOs For Grid Collapses

TCN

The electricity Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, has said that lack of capacity in the electricity Generation Companies, GENCOs, and the Distribution Companies, DISCOs, is the main reason for the incessant collapses in the national grid.

At the backdrop of this the chairman, Technical and Monitoring Committee of TCN governing board, Mr. Nsima Ekere, stated that TCN was in the process of installing a supervisory control and data acquisition, SCADA system which would address the inconsistency leading to grid collapse.

Ekere made this known at the inspection of TCN warehouse and some key substations by the committee board members of TCN in Lagos.

According to him, “Grid collapse and network reliability is not TCN’s fault but majorly from the GENCOs and DISCOs as they take more power and sometimes less, which ultimately impacts negatively on the national grid.

“The average generation in the country is from 3,000mw to 4,000mw which is less than 40 percent of the present capacity, but with the transmission expansion projects ongoing, in the next two or three years the capacity would be doubled.

“There is need for the GENCOs and DISCOs to step up their capacity, make commensurable investments, work on infrastructure and improve on their capacity to take power and distribute in order for Nigerians to enjoy some level of stability in power supply.”

He added, “TCN is in the process of installing a supervisory control and data acquisition, SCADA, system and once this is fully deployed, it will help to a large extent with reliability and eliminate grid collapses.”

At the visit to Lagos-west substation in Ayobo, the General Manager, Lagos west substation of TCN, Mr. Mojeed Akintola, said the substation had the capacity to wheel 1,050mw, adding that it would supply three distribution companies namely, Eko Electricity Distribution Company, Ikeja Electric and some parts of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company.

SOURCE:VANGAURD