By ABAH SUNDAY, Abuja
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) says the national power grid which experienced failure on Thursday was restored some few hours thereafter.
This was disclosed Friday in a statement signed by the company’s General Manager, Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah.
Quoting a report from the National Control Centre (NCC) in Osogbo, TCN said the system disturbance was triggered by a significant reduction in generation capacity, primarily due to gas constraints. This reduction led to a rapid decline in system frequency. This created a sudden imbalance in the grid.
“The imbalance in grid stability was exacerbated by the sudden tripping of Egbin generation turbine 3, resulting in an additional loss of 167MW load and the subsequent collapse of the grid,” it explained further.
On Thursday, the Nigerian power grid suffered another national grid collapse which was confirmed by some distribution companies, DisCos, who took to their social media pages to appeal to their customers for patience and understanding.
Confirming the development to its customers, the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, AEDC, said the national grid collapsed at about 4:28 pm, plunging the country into darkness.
“Dear valued customers, please be informed that the current power outage is due to a system failure from the national grid. The system collapsed at about 16:28 hours today 28 March 2024, causing the outage currently being experienced across our franchise area.
We appeal for your understanding as all stakeholders are working hard to restore normal supply,” the Abuja DisCo said.
Also, the Eko Electricity Distribution Company said: “Dear valued customer, kindly be informed there was a system collapse at 16:28hrs which has resulted in a loss of power supply across our network
We are currently working with our partners as we hope for speedy restoration of the grid. We will keep you updated as soon as the power supply is restored. Kindly bear with us.”
This latest development makes it the third time the grid collapses in four months.
The SUMMIT POST reported a system collapse that occurred on 12 December, 2023, leading to a crash in power generation from 4,032.8MW to 43.5MW the preceding day, and on 4th February, 2024.
With this and other prevailing challenges across the entire power value chain which have kept available power hovering around 3,500 to 4,500 megawatts averagely, industry watchers believe that the sector under the leadership of the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, is grossly underperforming, especially given the assurance by the Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led Renewed Hope administration upon coming on board that it would do everything possible to turn around the critical sector for the good of all Nigerians.