10th March, 2014
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) said it had lost one of its 330KV transmission lines from Sapele to Ughelli, Delta and 12 towers along the route, to fire.
y Mrs Seun Olagunju, its General Manager in charge of Public Affairs said the fire was caused by a petrol tanker that fell and caught fire at the transmission station on Sunday morning.
“The fire caused the melting and snapping of all of the line conductors between the two towers causing a loss of balance along the transmission line.
“This resulted in their eventual collapse. Tower 81 did not collapse but was bent’’, it said.
It added that with the collapse, TCN had temporarily lost power evacuation from the line.
The statement said all power generated by Delta and Sapele Power Stations would now only be evacuated through the second 500MW capacity 33KV transmission line from Ughelli to Benin.
It assured that the Benin line would adequately evacuate power generated from the power stations to Benin.
The statement said it TCN had also put plans in place to ensure that the transmission lines were free of encumbrances to ensure continued efficient wheeling of power generated.
It said it had also put security operatives in place to guard the collapsed tower from vandals.
The statement said the incident had led to massive loss to the company and the nation and that about one billion naira would be required for the reconstruction of the 12 towers.
It pledged to do all it could to reconstruct the 33KV transmission line as quickly as possible to check further losses to the nation.