The Transmission Company of Nigeria announced that the national power grid has been restored after a partial collapse on Saturday.
TCN Public Affairs General Manager Ndidi Mbah shared this update on Sunday, describing the incident as a “partial disturbance.”
“There was a partial disturbance of the grid at about 15:09 hours yesterday, 6th July 2024,” Mbah said. She noted that this incident marks the third partial disturbance and the fourth overall grid disturbance this year.
According to Mbah, the collapse was likely triggered by the unexpected shutdown of three units at a power-generating station. This sudden loss removed 313MW from the grid, leading to system instability and the loss of bulk supply to a section of the national grid.
“The system operator reacted to the sudden drop in generation, which led to a dip in frequency by isolating a section of the grid. This included the Ibom Power Station, through which we continued to feed Uyo, Aba, Itu, Eket, Calabar, and other areas, even when other sections of the grid had no supply,” Mbah explained.
Mbah added that the operators started grid restoration efforts immediately after the incident. “At about 21:57 hours yesterday, the entire part of the grid affected by today’s incident was successfully restored,” she said.
Meanwhile, electricity consumers have expressed frustration over the repeated collapses of the national power grid. This recent collapse occurred just three days after the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission approved a tariff increase for Band A customers, from N206.80 per kilowatt-hour to N209.50/kWh.
On Saturday, power generation from all power plants dropped to a mere 70MW at 3 pm, down from a peak of 3916MW around 10 am. As a result, distribution companies received zero allocation by Saturday evening.
