TCN Says Grid Fully Restored after Nationwide Blackout, Blames ‘Tripping’ of Generator

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) yesterday said it had fully restored power nationwide, about 24 hours after a system collapse led to a blackout all over the country.
Nigeria’s electricity grid collapsed for fourth time this year on Saturday afternoon, with power generation dropping to as low as 57 megawatts at 6.07 pm, a significant fall from the almost 4,000mw recorded at about 8am the same day.

A THISDAY review of available information had shown that the power plants contributing to the grid began to shut down from around 2pm, declining to 2,797.16mw. It further shrank to 1,020.08mw around 3pm before drastically falling to 0.80 by 4pm.

On the latest occurrence, some power distributors notified their customers that the system failure was as a result of the grid collapse, but stated that they were working with the TCN to restore electricity as soon as possible. The last incident happened in April this year.
However, the TCN in a statement announcing the restoration of electricity nationwide, argued that the incident was not a total grid collapse, but a partial disturbance.

It further maintained that there had been three grid disturbances, rather than four, explaining that only one was a total grid collapse.
“The Transmission Company of Nigeria hereby states that there was a partial disturbance of the grid at about 15.09 hours yesterday (Saturday)  July 6, 2024.
“The system disturbance, which brings to three the partial grid disturbances, with one total disturbance this year, is suspected to have been triggered by the unexpected tripping of three units of a power generating station.

“This 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 statement signed by the General Manager, Public Affairs of the company, Ndidi Mbah, stated.
It added that the System Operator (SO) reacted to the sudden drop in generation  which led to a dip in frequency, by ‘islanding’ a section of the grid which included the Ibom Power Station through which the company continued to feed Uyo, Aba, Itu, Eket, Calabar, 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 hours yesterday (Saturday), the  entire part of the grid that was affected by the day’s incident  was successfully restored,” the transmission company said.