President Muhammadu Buhari revealed that the present electricity challenge plaguing Nigeria is mainly caused by low gas-power generation as a result of sabotage of gas pipelines, leading to the shutdown of power plants.
The President disclosed this in a statement on Wednesday evening while apologizing to Nigerians over fuel and electricity challenges.
He added that so far the restoration to the grid of 375MW has been achieved.
What the President is saying
President Buhari assured Nigerians that the issue of electricity blackouts being experienced across the nation, it is being addressed.
- He said, “A dip in hydroelectric generation due to seasonal pressures has coincided with technical and supply problems at thermal stations. On this, the government is also working tirelessly to resolve the issues at these stations, to guarantee sufficient power flows into the national grid.
- “We have identified the main challenge as being one of low gas-power generation as a result of sabotage of gas pipelines, leading to the shutdown of power plants. This in addition to ongoing routine maintenance on other gas power plants.”
He added that actions currently being taken have since been agreed upon between the players in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI), and also the NNPC, with a target of recovering over 1000MW.
- “So far, the restoration to the grid of 375MW has been achieved, following successful repairs to a critical pipeline.
- “I am pleased to add that a USD 50 Million Gas Supply agreement is being finalized to secure the availability and sustainability of up to 800MW of underutilized National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) capacity,” he added
In case you missed it
ALPHA NEWS NG learnt earlier that Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu said that the national grid which collapsed twice this week has been recovered as it has solved the power outage being experienced across the country.
He added that the more reason we are facing the situation now is as a result of the shortage of gas and some of the generators have to go into maintenance.