14th September, 2023
The Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, on Thursday afternoon said it has commenced the process of restoring electricity across the country following the collapse of the national grid which resulted in hours of nationwide blackout earlier in the day.
The national electricity grid collapsed at about 12:35 a.m. on Thursday, according to reports.
The Enugu Electricity Distribution Company, EEDC, and Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, AEDC, had told their customers that the total power blackout across their franchise areas was due to the collapse of the grid.
The grid collapse was attributed to a fire incident on Kanji/Jebba 330kV line 2 of TCN.
However, Ndidi Mbah, the General Manager of Public Affairs at TCN, in a statement said the company has restored power to states in the West, North Central, South, East and many parts of the northern states.
“The Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, hereby notes that grid restoration nationwide is in progress and has reached advanced stages with power supply now available in the West, North Central, South, East, and a large portion of the Country’s Northern parts.
“The power supply restoration is a sequel to the total grid collapse, which occurred at about 12.35 am this morning, causing outages nationwide after over 421 days of consistent grid stability.
“During the grid restoration, the process initially suffered a setback; this does not amount to another collapse. In the course of any grid restoration process, challenges may be encountered.
“This happened today while the grid restoration was in progress, but it was promptly addressed.
However, the company assured that it is doing everything to stabilise the system as it noted that the last total system collapse recorded was 421 days ago on 20th July 2022.
“Before this, the system had been stable despite the challenges posed by zero spinning reserve and lack of System Control and adequate Data Acquisition (SCADA) essential to a strong and stable grid, among others.
“TCN has been able to maintain 400 days of grid stability because it developed and deployed in-house stop-gap measures and tools that it has continued to use to manage the nation’s grid, ensuring its stability.
“TCN is determined to continue to do its best to ensure grid stability.
“Meanwhile, the collapse that occurred after a fire incident on Kanji/Jebba 330kV line 2 is being investigated, with the view to forestalling future occurrence and invariably further strengthening the grid”, TCN stated.