The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) on Friday announced the successful restoration of the collapsed national electricity transmission grid.
The TCN General Manager, Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah, disclosed this in a statement Friday.
“The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN ) has successfully restored the national grid following a system disturbance that occurred at 4:28 p.m. on Thursday, 28th March 2024, with full recovery achieved by 10:00 p.m. that same day.
“According to a report from the National Control Centre (NCC) in Osogbo, the system disturbance was triggered by a significant reduction in generation capacity, primarily due to gas constraints,” Ms Mbah said.
She explained that this reduction led to a rapid decline in system frequency.
“This created a sudden imbalance in the grid. The imbalance in grid stability was exacerbated by the sudden tripping of Egbin generation turbine 3, resulting in an additional loss of 167MW load and the subsequent grid collapse.
“The grid has, however, since been recovered and is stable and is currently transmitting all the generated power to distribution load centres nationwide,” she added.
She said TCN emphasises its unwavering commitment to addressing grid challenges and actively working to mitigate disruptions.
“In instances where challenges extend beyond TCN’s control, the company collaborates with other stakeholders in the power sector value chain to minimise the impact and swiftly restore the grid to normal operation,” she said.
Background
Nigerians were on Thursday afternoon thrown into darkness after the national grid system collapsed.
The system is operated by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) from Osogbo, Osun State.
Some of the nation’s electricity distribution companies confirmed that the grid collapsed in the early hours of Thursday, as most of their feeders were out.
The latest collapse occurred less than a month after the national grid system collapsed in February, and Nigerians were thrown into darkness.
In recent years, the power sector has experienced many challenges related to electricity policy enforcement, regulatory uncertainty, gas supply, transmission system constraints, and significant power sector planning shortfalls.
In November 2013, the federal government privatised all generation and 11 distribution companies, with the FG retaining the ownership of the transmission company. This was to improve efficiency in the sector.
However, since privatisation, the grid has collapsed more than 140 times.
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