THE electricity national grid yesterday began a slow recovery process hitting 3,772.60 Megawatts at 4pm yesterday following the suspension of industrial action embarked upon by workers of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN.
Checks by Vanguard on data provided by the National System Operator, a unit in TCN, showed 22 power generation companies were on the grid with Shiroro Hydro (584MW), Azura-Edo IPP (408MW) and Jebba Hydro (403MW) amongst the top generators.
On the distribution side, the electricity distribution companies load allocation was 2,485MW cumulatively with Abuja and Ikeja DisCos having the highest allocation of 280MW each.
The aggrieved TCN workers under the aegis of National Union Electricity Employees, NUEE and Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Companies, SSAEAC, had shut down the national grid on Wednesday following disputes with the Federal Government.
Their action caused a blackout across the country for almost 24 hours.
But following a conciliatory meeting initiated by the Federal Government the two unions suspended the action for two weeks to enable the government address the issues.
NUEE General Secretary, Joe Ajaero in a statement after the meeting said the parties deliberated on most of the issues in contention and ended with the following resolutions:
“On Issue of Unbundling of TCN’ it was put to rest as the government denied ever contemplating such an agenda.
“On the Issue of Stigmatization of Ex-PHCN workers, who have been denied employment opportunities in TCN; A high power committee was inaugurated comprising of the Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Power, Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, BPE, Market Operator, Office of the Head of Service of the Federation and the Two in-house Unions as members; to fine tune policy as was considered discriminatory and unacceptable and revert back immediately.
“Payment of outstanding arrears of privatization; The Ministry of Power was mandated to activate a sincere process with BPE to pay the outstanding liabilities (16th month arrears) and a comprehensive report is expected in two weeks”.
