The federal government said the collapse of the national grid on Thursday morning was caused by a fire outbreak on Kainji/Jebba 330kV line, leading to about 356.63MW generation loss.
Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, disclosed this in a series of tweets on his X handle on Thursday.
“At 00:35 Hrs this morning, a Fire outbreak with an explosion sound was observed on Kainji/Jebba 330kV line 2 (Cct K2J) blue phase CVT & Blue phase line Isolator of Kainji/Jebba 330kV line1 was observed burning.
“This led to sharp drops in frequency from 50.29Hz to 49.67 Hz at 0:35:06Hrs with Jebba generation loss of 356.63MW,” Mr Adelabu said.
He said Kainji started dropping the load from 451.45 MW at 00:35:07 Hrs to zero.
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“At 00:41 Hrs frequency dropped further from 49.37 Hz to 48.41 Hz resulting in the system collapse of the grid.
“We are on top of the situation and speedy restoration is in progress. The fire has been fully arrested and over half of the connections are now up and the rest will be fully restored in no time.
“My sincere appreciation to those who responded or expressed concern via different channels and the team of Engineers for their prompt response to the situation and work done so far. Let’s get the restoration work completed as soon as possible,” he said.
He explained that the delay in the update was deliberate, so as not to cause panic and to also be able to update on the progress of remedial actions taken so far.
“This is to ensure economic and security saboteurs don’t take advantage of every situation reported,” he said.
Background
Nigerians were on Thursday morning thrown into darkness after the national grid system collapsed.
The system is operated by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) from Osogbo, Osun State.
Some of the nation’s Distribution Companies confirmed that the grid collapsed in the early hours of Thursday, as most of their feeders are out.
The latest collapse is coming weeks after the TCN announced that the country’s power grid had maintained uninterrupted stability for over 400 consecutive days.
The TCN had in August said the Nigerian power grid has recorded an unparalleled period of stability in the history of the power sector, operating without any major disruptions or systems collapse for an impressive span of 400 consecutive days and counting.
“This milestone signifies a remarkable advancement in the nation’s efforts at strengthening its power infrastructure and ensuring a reliable and dependable electricity supply to distribution load centres for onward distribution to electricity customers nationwide,” the company said in a statement.
READ ALSO: UPDATED: Blackout across Nigeria as national grid collapses
In recent years, the power sector has experienced many broad challenges related to electricity policy enforcement, regulatory uncertainty, gas supply, transmission system constraints, and major power sector planning shortfalls.
In 2022 alone, the country’s national grid collapsed eight times.
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