The Federal Government has disclosed plans to create an independent super grid for each of the 19 northern states.
The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, announced this after a meeting with President Bola Tinubu on Monday in Abuja.
Adelabu stated that Tinubu has ordered that repair works be done quickly to restore electricity in the northern region.
Many areas in the north have experienced blackouts for several days due to vandalism of transmission lines, raising concerns among local leaders.
Adelabu explained, “The world is moving. This is the 21st century and we believe that the most effective way of supplying uninterrupted, functional, stable, and reliable electricity to the northern part of Nigeria is through a distributed power model whereby each of the northern states will have an embedded utility solar scale source. All the 20 states will be insulated and immune from each other.”
He added that there is progress on the project, with contractors and financial partners ready to install 100 megawatts of power in each northern state. The initial setup will provide 50 megawatts, which can later be upgraded to 100 megawatts.
Adelabu also mentioned the establishment of a super grid as a backup to the national grid. He said, “If the national grid has a problem, there will be an alternative grid through which power can be transmitted.”
He stressed the need for regional power systems, saying, “The world has moved beyond having a central grid; grids must be regionalised. We must have state grids so that each of the regionalised grids can be insulated from each other so that a problem in a particular line will not affect the others. Until that is done, we believe that we will keep managing what we have and reduce the frequent occurrence of grid disturbance.”
