PHCN Blames Power Outage On Plant Breakdown

Officials of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) in Eket, Akwa Ibom, have traced the cause of prolonged power outage in the area to a breakdown of the 190 megawatt Ibom Power Plant (IPP).

Mr. Offiong Itabong, Public Affairs Officer at Eket Business Unit of PHCN, told newsmen last Thursday that the utility company now depends on limited energy supply from the national grid.

“Ibom Power Plant has been out of supply as a result of some technical problems which have yet to be resolved.

“As a result, the entire Eket Business Unit has been managing a meagre 5 Megawatts (MW) from the national grid and we have resorted to massive load shedding.

“The aim of this arrangement is to ensure that we supply at least five hours of electricity to our customers”.

Itabong observed that the 5 MW supplied to Eket is a far cry from the 45 MW total energy need in the district which covers 12 local governments.

He appealed to the public to bear with the management of the PHCN as it had been working hard to restore normalcy in electricity supply.

“You will observe that until very recently we had stability but there was a sharp drop in supply because we now depend on supply from the national grid.

“We hope to overcome these challenges soon and we seek the understanding of our numerous customers in Eket district,” Itabong said.

The PHCN official expressed regrets that vandals had capitalised on the situation to vandalise the substations, and appealed to the public toward off vandals by being vigilant.

The prolonged power outage and fuel scarcity have in the last one month taken a heavy toll on economic activities in the district.