There is cause for concern over the quality of the procurements made by Nigeria’s transmission companies due to the frequent occurrence of fire accidents throughout transmission substations.
The electricity sector and the nation’s faltering national grid are said to be in grave danger by those with a stake in the matter.
For example, the national grid had previously collapsed due to fire accidents on vital electricity infrastructure in states such as Lagos, Kebbi, and Niger.
Power outages and billions of Naira in damage to Nigeria’s electrical infrastructure were the results.
Worryingly, the reasons behind these fire accidents have not been revealed.
Despite the accidents’ significant effects on the country’s economy, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) typically reports them with curt remarks.
This new information calls into question the reliability of the TCN’s installation services.
The managing director of TCN, Sule Abdulaziz, was allegedly in violation of the Public Procurement Act, 2007 in relation to a contract award in November 2023 worth N5,677,692,943.26. The allegation surfaced four days ago. However, the TCN refuted the accusation.
Substandard installation equipment, fabricated line materials, undersized transformers, refurbished critical equipment, non-availability or lack of protection facilities, and other issues in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) are to blame, according to experts, for the increasing number of fire incidents in transmission stations.
The event that is being examined is the fire that occurred on December 16, 2023, at the Transmission Substation in Maryland, Lagos State.
The TCN claimed in their defense that the machinery was produced in 1983.
The abrupt breakdown of the yellow phase capacitor voltage transformer on Maryland-Ikorodu 132kV Line 2 was caused by insulation failure and aging. It stated that the equipment was made in 1983.
Just before that, the blue phase CVT and isolation transformer of the Kainji/Jebba 330kV line 2 (Cct K2J) and the blue phase line of line 1 of the same line caught fire. At 0:35:06 hours, the incident caused a precipitous decline in frequency from 50.29 Hz to 49.67 Hz, leading to a 356.63 MW loss in Jebba generation and the subsequent breakdown of the grid.
The transmission substation of the Transmission Company of Nigeria in Birnin-Kebbi, Kebbi State, was the site of yet another fire on September 14.
As a result of the event, Kaduna Electric announced that portions of the states of Zamfara, Kebbi, and Sokoto were without power.
A fire at TCN’s Alagbon Transmission Substation occurred on June 14. The fire damaged one of TCN’s 60MVA power transformers as well as all three of Lagos’s Alagbon 330/132/33KV lines.
What has transpired recently is identical to what has transpired in the past.
In the same vein as the 150MVA 330/132kV power transformer that burned to the ground at the Ayede Transmission Substation in Ibadan, Oyo State, on April 15, 2022, another 330/132/33KV substation in Adiabo Cross River State caught fire on September 5, 2022.
The 45MVA 132/33kV electricity transformers at Apo Abuja’s transmission substation were impacted on April 28, 2019, at the same time as a fire was recorded at the 75MXreactor in the Benin Substation on Sapele Road in Benin City, Edo State.
There were eerie parallels to all of these events.
The increasing number of fire accidents has been attributed, according to Engr Peter Ekwesor, a former MD of the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA), who spoke with SAREWAHAUSA, to the low quality of essential electrical equipment.
He claims that Nigerians might be confused by the details.
Ten years after the country’s power sector was privatized, he pointed out, nothing had changed.
The country’s power sector is still having a hard time adjusting to privatization, even after a decade. There will be no resolution to the issue unless we are honest with ourselves.
Many believed privatization would solve their problems; yet, after a decade, they still haven’t seen any results.
We plunged headfirst into privatization without doing any assessment. There was supposed to be a prototype in place before we dove in, but that never happened.
When it comes to the power sector, the nation just can’t seem to get its act together.
We have the best policies in Nigeria, but they haven’t been put into action properly, and that’s been our biggest problem.
In Nigeria, no privatization effort has been successful. Introduced were private enterprises in the field of telecommunication. Their original plan was to open up the commercial space, which would have been successful in the energy industry but did not.
Although the generation businesses may be an exception, privatization has had no effect whatsoever. “During the period under review, DisCos did not make any investments,” he informed SAREWAHAUSA.
Another expert on energy policy and law, Professor Yemi Oke, has argued that the NESI has failed miserably due to the lack of standardization in electrical systems.
Similar to the issue of vandalizing pipeline installations of petroleum liquids, standardization of electrical installation is a big concern for the industry.
Vandalism of electrical facilities can lead to fires on occasion. This includes things like high tension cables, Hammond cables, and others.
The enforcement and regulatory authorities should fulfill their duties, customers should be educated on what to install and what not to, and artisans should receive training and ongoing education on electrical installation, he told SAREWAHAUSA.
The increase in fire accidents in transmission substations in Nigeria was, according to Kunle Olubiyo, president of the Nigerian Consumer Protection Network, caused by the provision of trash and inferior materials.
He claims that the board of directors of TCN has not been conducting independent audits of their power infrastructure.
Olubiyo demanded that the country’s electrical industry undergo stress testing, certification of transformers, and appropriate capacity testing.
Because funds allocated for electrical equipment have been redirected, there exist connections in the system. Electricity facilities are being constructed out of imported trash.
Misallocation of public funding from areas of urgent needs to superfluous initiatives impacts the entire output of the national grid, not money itself.
Since 1980, numerous transformer facilities have been neglected and left to deteriorate.
Substandard materials, undersizing, counterfeit labeled products, line materials, refurbished critical infrastructure, lack of system protective mechanisms, and other factors contribute to transformer fires.
“The previous administrations of TCN have refrained from undergoing independent audits of their power infrastructure.
TCN has neglected its safety culture due to its disregard for proper electrical installation practices. Old TCN gear is everywhere. No safeguards are in place to secure the system.
There is an issue when a facility worth billions of dollars goes missing without a thorough examination of what went wrong.
“The regulatory institution must be fortified by the government. We have NEMSA, for example, but TCN avoids using it.
No grid stress testing have been conducted by the government. Power plants around the nation are required to undergo routine stress testing. It would be more transparent to transfer all power sector equities to the capital market.
He explained to SAREWAHAUSA that the DisCos were actually just a form of sole proprietorship “mask[ed] as evenly spread equity,” with the use of proxies.
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