National grid fully restored after collapse – TCN
- Says collapse is suspected to have been triggered by the unexpected tripping of three units of a power-generating station which suddenly removed 313MW from the grid, causing system instability that led to the loss of bulk supply to a section of the national grid.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria said the national power grid has been restored following Saturday’s collapse.
The TCN Public Affairs General Manager, Ndidi Mbah, who disclosed this on Sunday, described the collapse as partial.
Mbah said, “there was a partial disturbance of the grid at about 15.09Hrs yesterday, 6th July 2024.”
According to her, the incident “brings to three, the partial grid disturbances, with one total disturbance this year.”
The TCN spokesperson said the grid collapse is suspected to have been triggered by the unexpected tripping of three units of a power-generating station which she said suddenly removed 313MW from the grid, causing system instability that led to the loss of bulk supply to a section of the national grid.
“Meanwhile, the system operator reacted to the sudden drop in generation which led to a dip in frequency by islanding a section of the grid which includes the Ibom Power Station through which the company continued to feed Uyo, Aba, Itu, Eket, Calabar, etc. even when the other section of the grid had no supply.
“Also, the operators commenced grid restoration efforts immediately after the incident. At about 21.57 hrs yesterday, the entire part of the grid that was affected by today’s incident was successfully restored,” Mbah said.
Meanwhile, electricity consumers have condemned the repeated collapse of the national power grid.
This comes after power generation from all power plants dropped to a paltry 70MW at 3 pm after it peaked at 3916MW around 10 am on Saturday.
It was observed that the distribution companies got zero allocation as of Saturday evening.
The grid collapse came barely three days after the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission approved a tariff increase for Band A customers, from N206.80 per kilowatt-hour to N209.50/kWh.