INCESSANT AND UNRELIABLE POWER SUPPLY IN NIGERIA: CAUSES, EFFECTS AND SOLUTIONS (IKORODU, LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA AS A CASE STUDY)

Oshin, Ola Austin

Elizade University, Ekiti State

Email: austin.oshin@elizadeuniversity.edu.ng, zolaolaaustin@yahoo.com

Abstract

The present unreliable and erratic power supply is a pointer to the fact that there is a great need for fault evaluation and reliability studies of electric power system in the Nigeria. The recent blackout in the country has grounded many activities and has destroyed many industrial processes. Also, the power industries face a lot of problems. Some of the highest priority issues being generation of sufficient power, urgent clearance of faults, adequate protection and increase reliability of the system,  that is, bringing a steady uninterrupted power supply to the consumers. The Nigerian power problem resulted to incessant planned, forced and unplanned outages. In addition, it has resulted to erratic and unreliable supply of electricity in the country. It has reduced productivity and has increased unemployment rate in the country to over 40million (this figure is over 70% of Nigerian youths. It has led many of the youths in the country to crime. It has led many of the deaths of many innocent people in the country.  Hence, an analytical method is developed to assess the dynamic- reliability of the distribution system, as well as optimizes the occurrence of faults along each of the individual consumer point in a feeder in order to improve the performance of the system. This research publication therefore evaluates the occurrence of faults which is about 856 occurrences during a period of 8 years and outages which range between 1118 to 3785 hours per annum along the distribution lines, also the failure rates of each of the feeders were analyzed in order to improve on the supply of electricity in the distribution network. The reliability of the system which ranges between 8.57*10^-12to 9.548*10^-5 were analyzed; and fault clearing techniques were carried out. Efforts were made to adequately assess the failure rates of the feeders which range between 0.003 and 0.001 and reliability of the distribution system. Efforts were also made to improve the performance of the system. As a result, it was possible to establish improvement techniques which ensure adequate and constant supply of electricity to all the consumers for industrial growth and employment: a basic solution to increasing crime rate in the country.