The Federal Government has revealed that a poor maintenance culture and inadequate and aged equipment, among other challenges, are the underlying reasons for the incessant multiple collapses of the national power grid witnessed in recent months.

It also stated that the high voltage of electricity surpassing the capacity of its equipment caused the blackout witnessed on October 14 and 19, 2024.

The Chairman of the investigative committee probing reasons for grid collapse, Nafisatu Ali, revealed this during the report presentation at ministry headquarters on Wednesday, November 6, 4 in Abuja.

This came barely 24 hours after the latest collapse that occurred on Tuesday, making it the 10th time the national grid would collapse in 2024 alone.

According to her, the investigative team observed similar challenges and problems affecting all stations during its probe.

She said the investigative team examined the grid collapse incident that occurred on October 14 and 19 and found out that the shattering of lightning arrestors in Jebba and Oshogbo transmission stations and the explosion of a CT also in Jebba Station were reasons for both incidents.

According to her, “For the event on the 14th, lightning arrestors in Jebba and Oshogbo shattered. The one in Jebba was for the shunt reactor and this was caused by high voltage. Subsequently, we had the tripping of multiple 330kV lines. It kept going until it became major.

“The remote cause of that is the unavailability of the second reactor in Jebba, and that is because Jebba, by the design of the network and sometimes the topology of the network at a particular time is very prone to high voltage.”