The Association of Nigerian Electricity Distribution (ANED), has urged the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to as a matter of urgency procure a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) equipment to reduce system collapse.
The SCADA is a compute system for gathering and analysing real tine data.
SCADA systems are used to monitor and control a plant or equiment in industries such as telecommunications, water and waste control, energy, oil and gas refining and transportation.
Mr Sunday Oduntan, the Executive Director Research and Advocacy, ANED, the umbrella body of DisCos, said this in an interview in Abuja on Monday.
Oduntan said that the SCADA when installed would monitor the grid and trace system collapse faults, adding that it was very important for TCN to acquire the equipment.
According to him, the Managing Director of TCN, Mr Usman Mohammed alluded to the fact that it is very important for company to acquire and install the equipment.
“ The current situation is not good because the current National grid is radial in nature which means it goes straight.
“ Whenever there is a problem on the right or the left it cannot turn right or left to solve problem.
“So we need a flexible greed, we need technology that will enable them see the grid. We have the national control centre at Osogbo in Osun .
“Yet they cannot see what is going on in Benin, Asaba, Port Harcourt, Kastina or Enugu and Abuja, even places that are close to Osogbo as Ilorin,” he said .
Oduntan said that whenever there was a problem, TCN would have to get on the phone, relying on somebody else at the other end.
He said that whereas SCADA gives you that wide opportunity to watch, monitor and take action on your network real life and time.
“So SCADA is very important, I don’t know of any country in the world or a country as big as this that does not have such an equipment.
“You cannot be efficient without SCADA, so TCN needs to see this as an important acquisition they have to make,”he said .
Oduntan also said that ANED was working with the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to improve power network.
He said that this was to ensure that the DisCos improve their performance to do better than they had been doing to reduce the losses.
