Nigeria hit by blackout

A gas pipeline fire cut off supplies to six Nigerian power plants, shutting down the national electricity grid, the ministry of power said on Wednesday.

The affected plants, with combined capacity of more than 3 GW, went off line Tuesday night. The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is working to restore gas supply to the 1.32-GW Egbin, 676-MW Olorunsogo NIPP, 338-MW Olorunsogo, 450-MW Omotosho NIPP, 338-MW Omotosho and 60-MW Paras power stations, Nigeria’s Power, Works and Housing Ministry said.

“The sudden loss of generation due to interruption in gas supply from these stations caused the national transmission grid to trip off around 20:20 on 2nd January 2018,” the statement read. 

“Once the national grid is restored, output from the hydroelectric power stations and all other unaffected gas fired thermal power stations will be increased to the extent possible to minimise the impact of loss of generation from the affected power stations while NNPC takes necessary steps to restore gas supply.”

In his New Year’s address, President Muhammadu Buhari announced the country had achieved generation capacity of 7 GW. However, an estimated 160 GW is needed to meet demand. NNPC in March 2017 unveiled a power plant construction programme that will almost double Nigeria’s power generation capacity over the next 10 years.