By Salif Atojoko
Mr Adebayo Adelabu, Minister of Power, says the Federal Government will soon establish super electricity grid as backup to the national grid that is experiencing incessant collapse.
Adelabu said this while briefing State House correspondents after a meeting with President Bola Tinubu on Monday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
According to him, if the national grid has a problem, the super grid will be an alternative route through which power will be transmitted.
He added that regional grids would be established to decentralise the national grid: “The world has moved beyond having a centralised grid. Grid must be regionalised.
“We must have state grids, so that each of the regionalised grid will be insulated from each other.
“A problem in a particular line will not affect the others. Until that is done, we believe that we’ll keep managing what we have and reduce the frequent occurrence of the grid disturbance,” said Adelabu.
Adelabu explained that the national grid collapsed twice in recent times due to explosion of the transformer at Jeba plant.
He said before the explosion, the last disturbance on the grid was about four months ago.
“Let me tell you the truth of the matter is we have old infrastructure. We have a national grid that is more than 50 years old.
“We have national grid whose transmission lines are weak, the towers are falling, and the substations, the transformers are old.
“In fact, the transformer that actually exploded in Jeba was 47 years old. We’ve been trying to revamp this, to change them, but they cannot all be changed overnight,” he said.
He said the ministry would continue to manage the grid to prevent frequent disturbances, until it was completely overhauled. (NAN) (www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Chinyere Joel-Nwokeoma