Politically speaking, socio-economic activities usually increase with population growth thus making it imperative for those responsible with delivering specific services to expand their infrastructure so as to meet new demands.

This informed the practice of installing relief transformers by the defunct National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) in areas where they are needed and is done after several load reading exercises have shown locations that require such infrastructural upgrades.

When an existing transformer is overloaded, and in order to protect it from damage, the interim measure often carried out is to embark on load rationing by drawing up a load shedding timetable in affected areas/community. This normally result into some areas enjoying power supply during the day while others are given supply at night and this method is often rotated to safeguard the already overloaded transformer.

To relieve the customers from such inconvenience, the normal practice is to either uprate existing transformers or add a new one in order to increase available capacity. For instance, an existing 200kVA 11/.415kV transformer can be replaced with a new 500kVA 11/.415kV transformer or another 200kVA 11/.415kV transformer installed to complement the existing one.   

This practice calls for heavy investment in procuring transformers of different ratings and other associated equipment like circuit breakers, conductors, insulators, isolators, relays etc., which often comes from money collected from the customers.

Since the unbundling of the power sector under the Electricity Sector Reforms Act (ESRA) of 2005, this enviable practice has receded as the distribution companies (DISCOs) seem to have shirked this responsibility and left it to be done by the customers of electricity.

Although it can be argued that the market is not delivering expected revenue for services rendered, it is illegal to transfer the burden of infrastructural expansion to helpless customers who are “tricked” into buying relief transformers and thereafter transferring ownership of the procured transformers to the DISCOs by making such commitments in writing.

The main reason for the privatization of the power sector is to inject efficiency into the sector by attracting funds for investment with the aim of improving the sector for better service delivery.

To this end, the DISCOs should re-introduce the concept of relief transformers into the sector for better service delivery.

With such step taken by them, the capacity of their network will increase and electricity will be more available for the use of Nigerians for both domestic and industrial purposes, and by extension this will translate into more revenue for the market.

To be very effective, it is pertinent for Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) (the regulatory authority) to establish a monitoring team to take inventory of areas experiencing epileptic power supply due to overloaded transformers and follow-up the action of the DISCOs to resolve such issues through the installation of relief transformers across their franchise.