The House of Representatives has mandated its committee on power to investigate the causes of the reoccurring national grid collapse in the country.

This followed the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance by Sani Bala (APC-Kano) at the plenary on Tuesday in Abuja.

Presenting the motion, Mr Bala said the national grid had witnessed reoccurring collapse lately, especially when there were system disturbances along the transmission lines connecting several generating stations.

He said since the privatisation of the power sector 2013, Nigeria had witnessed over 100 national grid collapses.

Mr Bala expressed concern that the latest in the series of power failures had been adjudged among the worst in the country.

This, according to him, indicated that there was no framework or spinning reserve meant to forestall such occurrences.

The lawmaker said it was incomprehensible that all the critical power plants in the country, including Egbin, Utorogu, Chevron Oredo, Oben gas-fired power plants, Ughelli and Chevron Escravos power plants, could all shut down at once.

He said the issue of the system collapse might not be unconnected with the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) lack of wheeling capacity, inadequate transmission lines and spinning reserves.

He said others included refusal to fast-track construction of digital control centres instead of the company’s current analogue system.

Mr Bala said available statistics from research showed that if the power generation were adequately wheeled and transmitted for distribution to consumers, there would be a 30 per cent reduction in the cost of generating power.

He said this would lead to a corresponding reduction in the prices of utilities in the electricity supply industry.

The house, therefore, urged its committee on power to investigate the TCN’s capacity to address the ugly trend.

The house said this was to forestall future occurrences and protect the country’s already fragile socio-economic environment.

(NAN)