Mohammed Shosanya
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN),says the cause of the sixth grid collapse this year which threw the nation into blackout on Monday, is still unknown.
Investigation into the cause of the incident will be carried out as soon as the grid is fully restored,Ndidi Mbah, the General Manager, Public Affairs,TCN said in a statement on Tuesday.
She said recovery is almost completed on the reported a partial disturbance in the national grid which happened on October 14, 2024, around 6:48 PM, leading to widespread outages.
She declared that currently, 90% of substations are operational, and power has been restored to major areas, including Abuja.
She reaffirmed that the Ibom Gas generating station remained unaffected, supplying power to parts of the South-South region, adding that an investigation into the cause of the disturbance will commence post-recovery.
She added:”The Transmission Company of Nigeria hereby states that the national grid experienced a partial disturbance, on Monday, 14th October, 2024 at about 6:48pm and notes that efforts to fully recover the grid is still ongoing.
“Although the recovery of the grid commenced immediately, with Azura power station providing the blackstart, grid recovery reached advanced stages at about 10.24am, today when it encountered a challenge that caused a slight setback in the recovery process.
“The slight setback notwithstanding, TCN continued with the grid recovery process, which has reached an advanced stage, ensuring bulk power availability to about 90% of its substations nationwide. Supply has been restored to the Abuja axis and other major distribution load centers nationwide.
“The partial disturbance did not affect the Ibom Gas generating station which was islanded from the grid yesterday, and continued to supply areas in the South Southern part of the country such as Eket, Ekim, Uyo, and Itu 132kV transmission Substations during the period.
Meanwhile,the President of Nigeria Consumer Protection Network, Kunle Olubiyo has said the reoccurrence of national grid collapses which leave the nation in darkness typifies the inadequacies of the Transmission Company of Nigeria.
Reacting to the incessant grid collapses in the country, Olubiyo said TCN’s trademark in the past years is paying lip service to the challenges facing the grid.
He criticized the TCN for its lack of sincerity in dealing with the problem of incessant grid collapses.
He added:“The repeated occurrences of system collapses and challenges of national grid’s stability and reliability are largely due to a lack of sincerity of purposes and paying lips services to a broad spectrum of issues and misplaced priorities over the years by the management of Transmission Company of Nigeria.
“Inadequate investment in Network Improvement strategies,dearth of system protective scheme/ system protective devices,near zero vegetation control and all other recurring decimal and already identified challenges which have received little or no attention”, he said