Yesterday, economic activities were again paralysed nationwide for several hours following the collapse of the national grid.
The collapse was the sixth this year and the second this month.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) blamed the grid collapse on a fire outbreak at Afam power generating station in Oyigbo, Rivers State.
The incident which took more than 12 hours to fix, triggered a drop in generation from 629 megawatts (mw) to 64.70mw, leaving commercial and domestic users without power for hours before the grid in Osogbo, Osun State was fixed.
In a statement by its spokesman, Ndidi Mbah, the TCN said: “At 02:41Hrs today (yesterday), fire erupted at the Afam V 330kV bus bar coupler, leading to the tripping off units at Afam III and Afam VI.
“This resulted in a sudden generation loss of 25mw and 305mw respectively, destabilising the grid and causing a partial collapse.
“During the incident, the Ibom Power plant was isolated from the grid and was supplying parts of the Port Harcourt region. This further minimised the effect of the system disturbance. TCN announced that the affected section of the grid had been fully restored and stabilised.”
The company reaffirmed its commitment to improving the “resilience and reliability” of the grid by paying attention to measures aimed at strengthening its infrastructure.
