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Nigeria’s power grid collapses
NIGERIA NIGERIA’S power grid collapsed on Mon- stakeholders.
day (March 14) causing a nationwide outage. Aliyu reportedly told participants, “We must
The entire system crashed due to the loss of find a solution so that Nigerians will have elec-
1,100MW from a 3,700MW generation peak tricity. I want us to have the patience to talk to
recorded earlier, according to This Day. each other, not blame each other.”
The collapse came some 24 hours after Gencos have blamed the worsening power
electricity Generation Companies (GenCos) supply in the country on the NGN1.6 trillion
accused the Transmission Company of Nigeria ($3.9bn) owed them by the federal government
(TCN) of inefficiency. since 2013. NBET disputes the debt claim, say-
The outage began at about 6am and over the ing only companies with active gas supply and
next few hours spread nationwide until the sys- transportation contracts were paid for un-uti-
tem collapsed at 10:40am, according to the Abuja lised capacity.
Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC). Nigeria has large oil, gas, hydro and solar
Minister of Power Abubakar Aliyu, called resources, and has the potential to generate
an emergency meeting with delegations from 12,522MW of electric power from existing plants
GenCos, TCN, Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trad- but on most days can only dispatch around
ing (NBET), Niger Delta Power Holding Com- 4,000MW, according to USAID, insufficient for
pany (NDPHC), Nigerian National Petroleum a country of over 195mn people.
Company (NNPC), Shell, and other value chain
Intertek awarded technical
service contract for Morocco-
UK power project
MOROCCO THE UK’s Xlinks has signed an agreement with onsite battery storage facility.
Intertek Energy and Water to provide quality The project’s generating capacity stretches
assurance and technical services for the Moroc- over a 1,500 km2 area and will be connected
co-UK power project, according to a state- exclusively to the UK, via 3,800 km of HVDC
ment on Monday. The technical services will subsea cables. Once complete, the project will
include cable routing, draft survey and other be able to cover nearly 8% of the UK’s electricity
specifications. needs. The capacity will be enough to provide
The two companies have been planning for low-cost, clean power to over 7mn British homes
the contract since completion of the feasibility by 2030.
study in March last year. The project will benefit The subsea cable systems that will follow the
from the long hours of sun in Morocco, along- shallow water route from the Moroccan site to
side the consistency of its convection Trade a grid location in UK, passing Spain, Portugal,
Winds, to provide a firm but flexible source of and France.
zero-carbon electricity. The project will generate 10.5 GW of
Located in Morocco’s renewable energy-rich zero-carbon electricity from the sun and wind to
region of Guelmim Oued Noun, the Moroc- deliver 3.6 GW of reliable energy for an average
co-UK power project is entirely based on solar of 20+ hours a day.
and wind energies, coupled with a 20GWh/5GW
P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 11 17•March•2022
