Business | Public Interest
Federal Government okays grid upgrade aimed at preventing collapses
"The Federal Government has approved plans to build a new Eastern-Western electricity grid as part of efforts to address Nigeria’s recurring power grid collapses.
The Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, disclosed this at the recent HBSAN energy conference in Lagos, where he outlined plans to address longstanding weaknesses in the country’s electricity transmission infrastructure.
Tegbe said the government is preparing to begin the procurement process for the projects, adding that Nigerians would begin to see their benefits in two to three years.
He revealed that the government has started a technical audit across the entire country to understand the issues with the power sector and to know what should be prioritised.
“We have clustered Nigeria into three energy zones. The first one is the one that demands 50 per cent. If you fix Lagos and you fix the Abuja corridors, you’ve solved more than half of the problem of Nigeria. Because you can’t do that alone based on operational efficiency, you also have to build out your grid.
The Federal Government has approved plans to build a new Eastern-Western electricity grid as part of efforts to address Nigeria’s recurring power grid collapses.
The Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, disclosed this at the recent HBSAN energy conference in Lagos, where he outlined plans to address longstanding weaknesses in the country’s electricity transmission infrastructure.
Tegbe said the government is preparing to begin the procurement process for the projects, adding that Nigerians would begin to see their benefits in two to three years.
He revealed that the government has started a technical audit across the entire country to understand the issues with the power sector and to know what should be prioritised.
“We have clustered Nigeria into three energy zones. The first one is the one that demands 50 per cent. If you fix Lagos and you fix the Abuja corridors, you’ve solved more than half of the problem of Nigeria. Because you can’t do that alone based on operational efficiency, you also have to build out your grid.
“We have started a technical audit across the entire country to say where do we have issues, and what issues specifically do we have. I don’t want to fix transformer issues where I have conductor and relay problems. I don’t want to fix insulators where the challenges I actually have are towers. So, we will finish that technical audit in the next couple of weeks. When we finish it, we then target our prioritised areas,” he said.
Tegbe attributed some of the challenges facing the transmission network to the age of its infrastructure, saying certain facilities dated back several decades.
He maintained that some transmission towers and lines were inherited from an era when the Electricity Company of Nigeria operated before the National Electric Power Authority.
“This government has inherited a problem of 50 years.
Before I became the Minister of Power, honestly, I used to think that everybody in the power sector just didn’t know their left from right. But the reality is, some of the towers have gone down with some of the transmission lines there.
“When I went to the site, I saw some of them carrying the logo of ECN. Many people in this room might not know what ECN is. ECN predated NEPA. So, some of these things were built 50 years ago. That is the reality,” he stated."
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The Federal Government has approved construction of a new East–West electricity grid to help prevent Nigeria’s persistent power-system collapses, the Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, announced at the HBSAN energy conference in Lagos.
Tegbe said the government will soon launch procurement for the project and expects Nigerians to begin seeing tangible benefits within two to three years. He added that a nationwide technical audit of the power sector—already underway—will identify the most urgent weaknesses and guide prioritisation.
“We have clustered Nigeria into three energy zones. The first zone accounts for roughly 50 percent of demand. If you fix Lagos and the Abuja corridors, you’ve solved more than half of Nigeria’s power problem,” the minister said. He stressed that improving operational efficiency must be accompanied by strategic expansion of the transmission grid.
Tegbe explained that the technical audit will pinpoint exactly where the problems lie so repairs match the real causes. “I don’t want to replace transformers where the actual issues are conductors and relays. I don’t want to change insulators when the challenges are failing towers. We expect to complete the audit in the next couple of weeks and then target our prioritized areas,” he said.
Highlighting the age of much of Nigeria’s transmission infrastructure, Tegbe said some towers and lines date back several decades—to the era of the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN), which predated the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA). “This government has inherited a 50‑year problem,” he observed, noting that many legacy assets are in poor condition.
The planned East–West grid and the targeted interventions identified by the technical audit form part of the Ministry’s broader strategy to strengthen transmission, reduce collapses and improve supply reliability across the country.
Sources: Punchnews