The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has highlighted the need for regional and state-specific power grids to prevent frequent national grid collapses in Nigeria. Speaking at the unveiling of Hexing Livoltek, an electricity meter manufacturing company in Lagos on Wednesday, Adelabu explained that the country’s current reliance on a single national grid leaves the entire nation vulnerable to outages.
He stressed that decentralizing the power sector, as enabled by the 2023 Electricity Act, would allow subnational governments to participate in electricity generation, transmission, and distribution, ensuring that grid collapses are limited to specific regions rather than affecting the entire country.
Adelabu acknowledged that grid collapses are almost inevitable given the poor state of Nigeria’s power infrastructure. He emphasized the need for significant investment to upgrade outdated equipment, noting that some transformers in use are over 50 years old.
Despite recent challenges, the minister noted that there had been no major grid collapses in the last four months, except for a partial collapse earlier in the week, which was resolved in under two hours. He emphasized the importance of improving response times when such incidents occur.
During the event, Hexing Group’s CEO, Robert Liang, expressed optimism about expanding into Nigeria and reaffirmed the company’s commitment to advancing clean energy in the country.
