Nigeria probes latest national grid outage [Updated]

The national grid restored after it collapsed

The national grid

Nigerian power authorities are probing the recurring national grid outage, the latest of which happened on Friday at 18.30 hours.

The Minister of Power, Mr Abubakar Aliyu disclosed this Saturday, in a statement by Mr Isa Sanusi, his Special Adviser (Media).

” A detailed investigation into the immediate and remote causes of the recurring grid failure is currently ongoing by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and System Operator of the national grid.

“We wish to assure Nigerians that the Federal Government is working assiduously to deliver on the much-needed reforms and investments,” Aliyu said.

He said the reforms included Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) and other investment that are critical to improving the capacity and reliability of the national grid.

The minister also said the process of restoring power supply is ongoing.

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He said some sections of the national grid had been energised already and supply restored to consumers.

In another statement, Sanusi said the immediate cause of national blackout (system collapse) was an act of vandalism on a transmission tower on the Odukpani – Ikot Ekpene 330kV double circuit transmission line.

This resulting in a sudden loss of about 400MW of generation.

“This consequently led to a cascade of plant shut down across the country”, he said.

“We wish to notify the public that power on the grid is being restored sequentially by the System Operator as other on-grid power plants are being dispatched to cover the lost generation capacity from the Calabar power plant owned by the Niger Power Holding Company Ltd”.

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