The Federal Government has approved the development of new eastern and western electricity grids as part of efforts to curb the frequent collapse of Nigeria’s national grid.
Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, disclosed this on Thursday at an energy conference in Lagos.
Tegbe said the government is preparing to begin procurement for the projects, adding that Nigerians could start feeling the benefits within two to three years.
He explained that the grid expansion forms part of wider efforts to improve power transmission and ensure more reliable electricity supply nationwide.
According to the minister, the government has divided the country into three energy zones to identify areas needing urgent attention and guide the distribution of resources.
“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,” he said.
He added that President Bola Tinubu has approved the commencement of the grid build-out.
“The President has approved that we commence the process of building out the grid: East and Western grid. We’re going through the procurement process, but it’s something you’ll see the benefits in two to three years,” he said.
Tegbe also disclosed that a nationwide technical audit is underway to pinpoint the specific faults in the transmission network, noting that the exercise will be completed in the next couple of weeks.
“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,” he said, adding that priority areas will be targeted once the audit ends.
The minister described the state of the power infrastructure as a 50-year-old problem inherited by the current administration.
He said some transmission towers have collapsed along with their lines, with some of the structures still bearing the logo of the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN), which predates the Nigerian Electric Power Authority (NEPA).
“This government has inherited a problem of 50 years… some of these things were built 50 years ago. That is the reality,” he stated.
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