Power Failure: NERC Wades In To Stop Incessant Grid Collapse

By Tosin Olatokunbo

The National Electricity Regulatory commission, NERC has unfolded a two-fold action plan to improve power supply in the country, which include holding the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN responsible for failure to deliver contracted load allocation to DISCOS and forcing the latter to pay for load rejection.

The NERC said the federal government could no longer ignore a situation where the two organizations failed to manage power load which has led to incessant collapse of the national grid.

Within the week, the national grid collapsed again leading to power failure in many parts of the country.

Electricity consumers in the country have decried constant power grid collapses which lead to power outages and disruptions of businesses in the country.

DISCOS have also been blamed for not releasing loads allocated to them due to facility constraint.

Experts, however, blamed power distribution firms for lack of capacity to absorb loads from generation companies, GENCOS, a situation that has pegged power available to consumers around 4000 and 5000 mega watts.

NERC guideline says “DisCos shall nominate a minimum of their load allocation based on hourly capacity declared by generating plants operating under NBET’s Power Purchase Agreements,” the guideline stated.

“Where a DisCo’s average energy offtake at the end of a monthly market settlement period is lower than its load allocation based on 6.0(c) above, the DisCo shall be liable to pay capacity charges in line with its load allocation and energy charge based on metered energy intake in the month.

“Where it is established that a Disco’s average energy offtake from the transmission is lower than its load allocation based on 6.0(c) above, the DisCo shall be liable to pay TCN liquidated damages (LD) based on the approved tariff (N/kWh) of TCN.

“Where a DisCo’s average energy offtake over a period of one month has exceeded its load allocation as in 6.0(c) above, the DisCo shall only be liable to pay capacity charges based on its load allocation and energy cost based on metered energy offtake in the month.”