The Federal Government is planning to construct a “super grid” to address the recurrent collapses of the national grid. Bolaji Tunji, the media aide to the Minister of Power, disclosed this in a statement released on Tuesday.
Adebayo Adelabu, the Minister of Power, made the announcement while attending the China-Africa Cooperation Summit in China.
He criticized the current state of the national grid, stating that it is inadequate to support the vision for the power sector.
“If we look at the strength, the capacity and the age of our existing network on the national grid, it cannot really support our vision for the power sector hence the need for the construction of the Western and Eastern super grid.
“Though we have been on this since my resumption, I can also tell you that the President is in full support of this because this will improve our transmission network, stabilise the grid and also expand the capacity and the flexibility of the national grid,” he stated.
Adebayo Adelabu announced that 90 percent of the necessary approvals for the construction of a super grid are in place and will be finalized shortly.
Reports from May indicate that former Minister of Power, Barth Nnaji, also advocated for a super grid to address the recurring collapses of the national power grid. Nnaji emphasized that the current grid’s frequent failures are due to its poor structure.
Nnaji revealed that during his tenure as Minister of Power, he had sought the approval of the Federal Executive Council to build a super grid, a 765KV network that would surpass the existing 330 KV grid.
According to him, the 765KV is large enough to take power from high-capacity plants like the Manbilla Power Plant.
He revealed that the country has yet to have a transmission network that could wheel power from Manbilla when completed.
“Another critical area in Nigeria’s power sector is the transmission network. I believe that having the national grid the way we have it still going to be a problem. First, it is not robust, and it is not well structured. My advocacy is for multiple grids, autonomous but connected to the national grid. So that the national grid still operates, and it will be more robust. It will begin to cure the regular incident of the failure of the national grid.
“When I was in government, we asked the Federal Executive Council to approve what we called a super grid, a 765KV network that will kind of rise above the existing 330KV network. Right now, Nigeria has 330KV and 132KV, but none of them is really robust. But the 765KV network will be very important to take power from power plants such as the Manbilla that has been on for a while. Over 10,000 megawatts of power will come from Manbilla. So, the question is, which transmission infrastructure will take that power suppose that we finish it now? We need a super grid to take that power so that Nigeria has the ability to take power from various plants and transmit it to wherever we want it,” he disclosed.
The Chairman of Geometric Power praised Adebayo Adelabu, the incumbent power minister, for restoring the super grid project.
The national grid has pushed Nigerians into darkness after collapsing more than five times in 2024.
This article was written by Tamaraebiju Jide, a student at Elizade University
