The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has explained the cause of the national grid collapse, which resulted in the general power outage nationwide in the early hours of Thursday.
The minister, in a statement issued on Thursday, linked the grid collapse to a fire outbreak at the Kainji/Jebba line, adding that the inferno has been totally put off.
He clarified: “At 00:35Hrs this morning, a fire outbreak with an explosion sound was observed on Kainji/Jebba 330kV line 2 (Cct K2J) blue phase CVT & Blue phase line Isolator of Kainji/Jebba 330kV line1 was observed burning.
“This led to sharp drops in frequency from 50.29Hz to 49.67 Hz at 0:35:06Hrs with Jebba generation loss of 356.63MW. Kainji started dropping load from 451.45 MW at 00:35:07Hrs to zero.
“At 00:41Hrs frequency dropped further from 49.37 Hz to 48.41 Hz resulting in system collapse of the grid. We are on top of the situation and speedy restoration is in progress.
“The fire has been fully arrested and over half of the connections are now up and the rest will be fully restored in no time. My sincere appreciation to those who responded or expressed concern via different channels and the team of Engineers for their prompt response to the situation and the work done so far.
“Let’s get the restoration work completed as soon as possible. The delay in the update was deliberate, so as not to cause panic and to also be able to update on the progress of remedial actions taken so far. This is to ensure economic and security saboteurs don’t take advantage of every situation reported”, Adelabu added.
At about 12:40 a.m reports indicated that the national electricity grid completely collapsed, causing widespread power shortages across the country..
The Enugu Electricity Distribution Company Plc, in an announcement titled ‘Total System Collapse’ issued by its Head of Corporate Communications, EEDC, Emeka Ezeh, partly stated: “The EEDC would like to apprise its cherished customers of a full system collapse that took place at 12:40 am, September 14, 2023.”
Meanwhile, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) at about 14 hours yesterday confirmed that the grid was being restored to facilitate transmission and distribution of electricity to consumers nationwide.
