On Tuesday, TCN reported a power outage in the North -East, North-West, and parts of North-Central after the 330 kV Ugwaji–Apir double circuit transmission lines 1 and 2 tripped around 4:53 am “due to a fault”.

The power outage occurred on Monday.

Providing an update in a statement on Wednesday, the company’s general manager of public affairs, Ndidi Mbah, said the fault was discovered in the Igumale area of Benue State.

The company said a team of linesmen from TCN discovered the fault on the line at about 5 pm on Wednesday.

According to Mbah, the fault area, which measures one span, was identified as a snapped 330kv transmission line in the swampy forest of Igumale, Benue State.

”Having made the discovery earlier in the evening of Wednesday, arrangements are already ongoing to mobilise equipment and materials that would be moved to the site of the incident to commence repair works.

A team of linesmen from the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, has discovered the fault on the Ugwuaji – Apir 330KV Double Circuit transmission line, at about 5 pm this evening, in the Igumale area of Benue State,” the statement reads.

The fault area of the transmission line, which measures about one span, was found to be a snapped 330kV transmission line located in the swampy forest of Igumale.”

Following the discovery, she said preparations are underway to gather the equipment and materials needed for TCN to begin repair work at the incident site on Thursday.

“Due to the difficult and swampy nature of the terrain, TCN would require to move a bulldozer and other materials for the repair works from the Enugu Regional office of TCN to the site of the incident.

“A Hiab vehicle would also be moved to Igumale to help TCN properly tension the transmission line,” Mbah said.

Mbah added that previous efforts by two teams sent to identify the cause of the forced outage had been unsuccessful until Wednesday evening.

The general manager reaffirmed TCN’s commitment to addressing the situation quickly, noting that the company is urgently organising the necessary materials for the repair work.

Mbah also expressed gratitude to the government and electricity consumers in the affected areas for their patience.

NLC and TUC commenced a nationwide industrial action on Monday in protest against the N60,000 minimum wage proposal of the Federal Government.

Announcing the shutdown of the national power grid in a statement issued on Monday morning by TCN spokesperson, Ndidi Mbah, the transmission firm said the action was deliberately done by the workers.

The statement was titled, “Grid shutdown: Union Deliberately shuts down the National Grid.”

It read in part, “The Transmission Company of Nigeria hereby informs the general public that the labour union has shut down the national grid, resulting in a blackout nationwide. The national grid shut down occurred at about 2.19am this morning, June 3, 2024.

“At about 1:15am this morning, the Benin Transmission Operator under the Independent System Operations unit of TCN reported that all operators were driven away from the control room and that staff that resisted were beaten while some were wounded in the course of forcing them out of the control room. Without any form of control or supervision, the Benin Area Control Centre was brought to zero. “Other transmission substations that were shut down by the labour union include the Ganmo, Benin, Ayede, Olorunsogo, Akangba, and Osogbo transmission substations. Some transmission lines were equally opened due to the ongoing activities of the labour union.”

On the power generating side, TCN said the power generating units from different generating stations were forced to shut down some units of their generating plants.

“The Jebba Generating Station was forced to shut down one of its generating units while three others in the same substation subsequently shut down on very high frequency. The sudden forced load cuts led to high frequency and system instability, which eventually shut down the national grid at 2:19am.

“At about 3.23am, however, TCN commenced grid recovery, using the Shiroro Substation to attempt to feed the transmission lines supplying bulk electricity to the Katampe Transmission Substation. The situation is such that the labour union is still obstructing grid recovery nationwide.

“We will continue to make effort to recover and stabilise the grid to enable the restoration of normal bulk transmission of electricity to distribution load centres nationwide,” the statement added.

The TCN announced that its “maintenance crew will carry out scheduled preventive maintenance on the bay of its T1A 150MVA, 330/132/33kV transformer bay” on Thursday and Friday, January 18 and 19, 2024.

According to a statement by the TCN General Manager, Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah, the maintenance would last eight hours, running from 9 am to 5 pm on each day.

Mbah disclosed that to commence the maintenance exercise, “TCN would transfer the load from T1A 150MVA transformer to its T2A 150MVA transformer in the same substation”.

She added that consequently, there would be “an interruption of bulk power supply to Jos and Yola DisCos through the T1A transformer”.

She clarified that the interruption would only affect bulk supply during the transfer period only, and not for the entire eight-hour period it would take to complete the maintenance exercise on both days.

“The short outage during the transfer period would affect supply to Gombe and some parts of Yola and Bauchi states only, during transfer time on both days.

TCN will, however, restore bulk power supply through the transformer immediately after the maintenance exercise,” Mbah explained.

The transmission company regretted “any inconvenience this may cause electricity consumers within the affected areas”.

The TCN maintenance crew had on Saturday carried out scheduled preventive maintenance on the Jos-Lafia 330kV transmission lines, which it said had been redundant for some time.

It was gathered that the grid collapsed totally around 12:40 a.m. on September 14, 2023, leading to the massive loss of supply to power distributors nationwide.

Multiple sources in the power sector, as well as electricity distribution companies, confirmed the development to our correspondent on Thursday morning.

The Enugu Electricity Distribution Company Plc issued a notice titled, ‘Notice of Total System Collapse’ on Thursday.

In the notice, it said, “The EEDC wishes to inform her esteemed customers of a total system collapse which occurred at 12:40 am today, September 14, 2023.

“This has resulted in the loss of supply currently being experienced across the network. Due to this development, all our interface TCN (Transmission Company of Nigeria) stations are out of supply, and we are unable to provide service to our customers in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo states. We are on standby awaiting detailed information of the collapse and restoration of supply from the National Control Centre, Osogbo.”

The notice was signed by the Head, of Corporate Communications, EEDC, Emeka Ezeh.

The TCN, which manages Nigeria’s grid, has yet to make any statement about the development.

About a week ago, the transmission firm celebrated what it described as 400 days of power grid stability in Nigeria, as it claimed that the grid witnessed no collapse all through the 400 days.

Spokesperson of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, Ndidi Mbah who confirmed the attack on Monday, January 20, disclosed that they are working to restore electricity as the electricity equipment serving the state capital and its environs were damaged.

She said “The Transmission Company of Nigeria hereby inform the public that Maiduguri and its environs have been cut off from the National Grid since January 17, 2020, due to damages to TCN’s equipment by insurgents. The incident affected the 330kV transmission line between Maiduguri and Damaturu. Also, the Damboa – Maiduguri 132kV transmission line has equally been disconnected from the grid for some time, for the same reason. TCN has located the fault on the Maiduguri – Damaturu line and has arranged to repair the line. Bulk electricity would be restored to Maiduguri on or before January 20, 2020. TCN pledges to continue to work to ensure bulk electricity transmission and grid expansion nationwide. The company wishes to use this opportunity to commend the Nigeria Armed Forces for their continued support especially in areas prone to insecurity. TCN regrets inconveniences caused by this problem to electricity consumers in the affected areas.”

According to the spokesperson of TCN, Mrs Ndidi Mbah, in a statement said the energized transformer, which was installed under the supervision of TCN’s engineers, has increased the capacity of the substation from 165MVA to 265MVA.

It said: “Prior to the installation of the 100MVA transformer, Ogba Substation had two units of 60MVA 132/33kV transformers and one unit of 45MVA 132/33kV mobile transformer.”

To ensure optimal utilization of the newly installed transformer, a new switchyard comprising 132kV, 33kV and three units of 33kV feeders was equally installed and commissioned.

TCN said with the increase in the substation’s capacity, from 165MVA to 265MVA, the substation now has more bulk electricity available for Ikeja Distribution Company (DisCo) to take to its customers within Ikeja Industrial Area, Ogba – Ijaiye, Agege Pen Cinema, Magoro Cement, Ojodu and Ifako-Ijaiye areas of Lagos.

To optimize the capacity of the commissioned 100MVA transformer at Ogba and other substations feeding Ikeja DisCo, it said, TCN has already imported high capacity conductors and would soon conclude a reconductoring contract that will expand the transmission lines under the DisCo.

“This will more than double the current capacity of the lines.

“TCN has sustained the implementation of the Transmission, Rehabilitation and Expansion Programme (TREP) under which the capacity of the company will be expanded to 20,000MW by 2023,” the statement noted.

He disclosed that international electricity customers have accumulated a bill of over $100 million since he assumed office as he warned that they will get disconnected if they don’t pay up.

Mohammed said “It is not because I am the chairman of the West African Power Pool (WAAP) that I will be allowing international customers to cheat Nigeria. When I took over as MD TCN, both Benin and Togo were owing Nigeria more than $100 million. The debt now remains $7 million. Niger is owing less than $2 million. In short, we are not leaving them. We disconnect them as we disconnect customers here in Nigeria. Electricity is not charity. We cannot just allow people to consume electricity and leave us like that. As at now, we have restricted their supply to only their contracted ones. We are insisting they pay all their outstanding bills before we reconnect them and we increase the off-take.”