MEDIATRACNET
Normal supply of electricity to consumers in Abuja and its environs resumed on Wednesday after the Transmission Company of Nigeria said it succeeded in restoring operations on the national grid.
The spokesperson of the transmission company, Ndidi Mbah, confirmed the restoration of supply to the national grid on Thursday.
“The Transmission Company of Nigeria hereby states that the national grid was fully restored at 4:59 pm yesterday (Wednesday), 28th July 2021, after a grid collapse which occurred at about 12:20 pm the same day,” Mbah said in a statement in Abuja.
On Wednesday, the spokesperson of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), Oyebode Fadipe, announced a cut in public power supply in Abuja and the environs.
Fadipe said the cut followed an electricity grid system outage that occurred at about 12:26 pm on Wednesday.
He said the outage resulted in the electricity distribution company being unable to serve its customers in Niger, Kogi and Nasarawa States as well as a significant portion of the entire Federal Capital Territory.
As a result of the development, Fadipe said allocation of electricity to AEDC for distribution to customers in its franchise area of coverage was significantly reduced.
Against the normal average allocation of over 400 megawatts (MW) of electricity every day, Fadipe said AEDC was allocated about 5 percent of the normal supply (about 20MW).
While announcing the restoration of normal supply of electricity through the national grid, Mbah disclosed that the collapse of the electricity infrastructure was triggered by a sudden drop in system frequency to 47.21Hz.
She said reports from the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and other power generating stations showed that at about 12:20 pm, two generating units tripped off in one generating station.
Four units equally tripped off in another power generating station, causing a loss of about 261MW and 350MW respectively.
The unexpected disruption in electricity generation, Mbah said, led to the total loss of 611MW of electricity on the national grid.
She said the sudden loss of 611MW from the grid was suspected to have caused system instability and its eventual collapse.
After the collapse, Mbah said TCN’s system operators immediately commenced the restoration of the grid, and by 12:46 pm, power supply in Abuja was fully restored from Shiroro Generating Station.
At about 1:05 pm, she said TCN equally commenced grid restoration from the Delta Power Station, with full restoration of the entire grid achieved at about 4:59 pm.
“We appreciate the government, electricity customers nationwide, and our international customers for their patience and note that TCN would continue to work hard to expand and maintain the stability of the national grid,” Mbah said.
