 In Nigeria, the dry season usually starts from the month of March to April every year. However, this year, there have been extreme hot and humid weather nationwide, even in coastal areas such as Lagos. Hitting the streets, residents of Lagos complain about the unbearable heat. There's no, even though if you have fun, nothing will work for you. I say if you have fun, you find yourself, come outside. Sometimes we spend night outside today because of the heat. Good night and afternoon morning, the hot, the weather is too high. Maybe this is the end of the life, I don't know. We are feeling the hot weather, but there is nothing we can do with it. Because there are no bright lights. So that is why we cannot sleep well in the night in the house. We do not have choice because every place that we buy petrol, that we can sleep better. Because if you can't see, find it is too much. See all my neck like this for each such. It's because we have to buy the petrol and we want it for days. To the second day, so I'm not okay. Medical and climate change experts warn against the dangers to human and natural resources. Dr. Tsunyum Mebawondu, a public health expert for over three decades, speaks about the major risk factors of heat and preventive measures to take during this period. The purpose of sweating is to provide a cooling system. Because once you sweat and the water evaporates, it cools your body. That is the purpose of the sweat. So now you have to sweat excessively. When you sweat excessively, you lose nutrients, you lose electrolyte, you lose water. So now if the water is not replaced, you become dehydrated. I mean, what it means is that the water in your body, then falls down to the low certain level, which becomes a problem for the body. This can have effect on the cardiovascular system, the proper of your heart. It has effect on the kidney function and even your mood and emotion. These are, of course, with the heat, you are prone to rashes, okay? Because the heat rush and infection thereof can be additional problem. So you also observe that people that experience heat cannot actually do work as they ought to do it. They have labile mood. They can't just swing anyhow. They get angry easily and they are prone to rash decisions. So apart from the thing having effect on the body, it has effect on the productivity of the person and even the productivity of the country or the city as a whole. If you are not an adult, you can stay under shade, okay? Trees, houses, bus stops, you know, that's where you can stay. Always take sufficient fluid, okay, along. Philip Japo is a climate change expert. He calls on the government to take action against gas emission, bush burning, car exhaustion and other human activities that pollute the earth. If we move away from those things, start looking at, like I said earlier, the mass transit trains that will take people a long distance, like the government is doing, but we don't see too much commitment, like Lagos State is trying to do, but it's neither here nor there. If we have that nationally, so that I don't need to drive my car every morning or evening and then I have to enter the train or the metro. Talking about the power grid collapse, the collapse of Nardjula Electricity Grid actually occurred twice on Friday and Saturday last week and despite concerted efforts to civilize power system. The federal government reports seen in Abuja on Monday showed that data in that report, which was obtained from the Federal Minister of Power, showed the quantum of electricity on the grid crashed from 3,000 megawatts on Friday to as low as 10,000 megawatts. Also, or 10 megawatts, also another collapse of the National Grid Accord on Saturday, April 9, 2022 as the nation's power system collapsed to 33 megawatts after it had earlier posted a peak generation of 3,281.50 megawatts the same day. The report, however, indicated that power generation on the grid moved on Sunday, that's April the 10th. You have the federal government also saying that the Nardjula Regulatory Commission on the System Operator were investigating the causes of the recurrent power grid collapse that had repeatedly led to widespread blackout across the country. We have George Itome, who is a power expert joining the conversation this morning. George Itome, it's good to have you join us. Yes, I can hear you. I hope you can hear me too. Well, many thanks for being part of the show. We appreciate it. So let's talk about this collapse of the National Grid and usually every time we hear that the National Grid collapsed and that's why Nigerians are in gross darkness, what exactly really happens? Do you have the power generator and infrastructure collapsing or the transmission infrastructure collapsing? And why do we have this constant collapse? Usually when you talk about the grid, the National Grid, you're actually referring to the transmission system. And as you are aware, there are three members, critical members in the value chain, the generation, transmission and distribution. The grid is the network of transmission lines through which when power is generated, it is then transported as it were to the distribution companies for onward supply to the various consumers. So when the grid would collapse for a number of reasons, usually it is when it either has too much generation on it or too little generation. This is why at any time it needs to be balanced. Now the grid capacity, like we all understand it, is roughly in the neighborhood of 4,000 to 5,000 megawatts. In other words, if generating companies generate more than 5,000 megawatts, the grid will strain to get that to the discourse. Or if it then goes below a very critical level, it will also strain. So it requires a delicate balance for that system to be maintained so that there's a steady flow. Now, for the generating companies themselves, they rely, we have two major sources of power in Nigeria, the hydro and the thermal plants. The thermal plants, which is about 80% of our power needs, their feedstock is gas. And I'm sure you're familiar with the story that there's shortage of gas, gas pipelines have been blown out. Whenever those things occur, it compromises the ability of the generating companies to get the fuel that supplies, enables them to turn their turbines and then in turn generate power for the grid. When that happens, the grid will be unable to get enough critical power to transport and then to protect itself, it has to shut down. This is why you hear about a total collapse. The grid has essentially been shut down. Now, at this particular time, I heard your report before now, it's very hot, that's affecting the hydro. The hydro complement, like I said, is about 20%. And that 20% itself, a part of it has been lost because of the dry weather, which has gone for so long this particular season. So the three hydro plants that we have, all situated in Niger states, are struggling with low water levels to enable them to contribute the much they used to do to the grid. So a combination of low supply from the hydro system and gas problems compromising gencos is largely responsible for the states of the grid like we have now. And then if there's a third factor, for some reason, I can't really find them at this point. Most of the generating plants are doing their turn-around maintenance. You know, you need to maintain these plants. It's just that it's a pity that this turn-around maintenance is coming around at the same time as you're having problems with the gas, a problem with hydro. So it's almost like having a situation in which it conspiracies as it were to deny Nigerian electricity. But having said that, the problem of yesterday, this issue of gas infrastructure of its sabotage has likely been fixed and suppliers returned to the grid. But yesterday's collapse is attributed to a direct attack on the transmission facilities. Themselves between Idupani and Ekodepani. Now that is very worrying because it's actually an act of sabotage. Because once you hit at the transmission lines themselves, it's a big problem. Because once you do that, it affects one section of the transmission lines unable to wheel power. It causes problems for all other sections. And so you will have a grid collapse. Again, to protect itself, the grid will collapse. You just think about a highway leading to a particular destination and then suddenly you have a gully. The gully just enables those who are coming to supply the power to continue with the journey. So this is what has just happened to the last two collapses, I mean Friday and Saturday. So that's a real cause for concern. Now perhaps the question would be why do we have these frequent collapses on and what should be done about it? Now one major thing experts will tell you is that our grid does not have what is called a spinning reserve. Now a spinning reserve is that system that enables you to have power on standby for those periods when you have this sort of collapse that I was talking about. It kicks in. It kicks in to give you short term supply until you fix the main problem. Our grid does not have a spinning reserve and one of the biggest recommendations going forward is that we should have a spinning reserve to cater for those periods when you have problems and then you require a little bit of time to fix the problem. So that way supply continues to go on and then you fix the problem. The other issue that has been this issue of do we really need one grid because we have one massive grid covering the entire country. And the question is can't you break up the grid? Must everybody be supplied power on this national grid system? The argument is honest whether or not we need one national grid but the problem here is that the problem with the one new grid as we call it now is that once something happens to one sector it affects the entire sector. So there should be the ability as it were to segment the grid so that you can create islands where power can be given to specific destinations when there's a problem in one other area. So that way you isolate supply areas so that transmission can continue instead of this humongous grid that we have today. And the final point was following the reforms and putting the privatization. The gencos have been privatized so have the discourse but transmission is still held entirely by the government. Naturally there will be the vagaries of government control in any of these assets. And so part of experts are saying you must do something about it. The plan was to concession it to top class management but we don't see that happening so I believe part of the human problems we face with government being involved in business is also one of the factors affecting the transmission. Alright Mr. George, you have indeed encapsulated all of the issues and of course the preferable solutions all in one go. But we do really appreciate the time but as it is right now what do we expect from these gencos and gencos are Nigerians going to get better supply over time with this frequent collapse that we've been having. What's the way for what's the future really? Well the future is that we really don't have a choice but get better. That's honestly speaking, we don't have a choice but to get better. And there are so many ways you can achieve this through regulatory intervention. For example, I'm sure you've heard of the William and William sellers agreement. This enables distribution companies to get power directly from generating companies and embed into their networks. By that we bypass the grid and many distribution companies are looking at those options right now. They're talking to independent power plants who can actually get power and embed it directly into their network so that we can serve their customers. The grid system, like I told you depends on all the products supplied to one single carrier and that can be drawback. But as it were, if you have embedded power in your network, then it creates this balance that I'm talking about. So the way forward, yes, is there any hope? Yes, there's any hope. It's taken a bit too long because this presentation has been there for like six, seven years and we should have been solving these problems because we always need that for a system. All right, Mr. Georgia, tell me. Yes. We must say a very big thank you very much. We're actually completely out of time. Thanks for all the thoughts that you have shared and indeed we hope that all of these inputs that you have mentioned would actually be taken into consideration so that we can have a better power supply going forward. Thank you so much once again, sir. My pleasure. All right. That's the size of the show for today. Let me thank you to all of you who have sat back to it and of course to all of our guests, sir, who joined us to share their thoughts on the issues that we have raised today. My name is Justin Akademi. Hi, I'm Messy Bookworth. You may start on any path of the conversation. It's all right to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and do subscribe to our YouTube channel as at Plus TV Africa and Plus TV Africa lifestyle. Thanks for watching. Have a great day.