The federal government said Friday’s national grid collapse was caused by “vandalism” at a transmission tower on the 330kV Odukpani – Ikot Ekpene double-circuit transmission line, resulting in a loss of around 400MW of generation. .
Isa Sanusi, a spokesperson for Energy Minister Abubakar Aliyu, said as much in a statement on Twitter on Saturday.
“This consequently caused a cascade of plant closures across the country,” he said.
The affected power station was recently upgraded along with the Okpai and Alam IV power stations, to bring 400 megawatts of electricity to the national grid.
Power companies on Friday notified their customers of the latest grid failure that left many cities in the dark.
“We are informing you that a national network collapse has just occurred which caused an outage in our franchise areas. We apologize for the inconvenience caused and appeal that you have us while we await the restoration of the TCN. We are sorry for any inconvenience caused,” said AbujaElectricity Distribution Company.
“Dear customers, there was a loss of supply as a result of the collapse of the system of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) around 6:30 p.m. in all of our franchise states of Bauchi, Benue, Gombe and Plateau,” the Jos electricity distribution company said.
The latest collapse is the fifth this year.
Energy Minister Abubakar Aliyu said poor maintenance and gas shortages were the causes of the collapse. He said the steps had been mitigated by the Presidential Power Initiative to prevent them from happening in the future.
“While the Electricity Regulatory Commission and the Nigerian System Operator (the national grid operator) are conducting a detailed investigation into the immediate and remote causes of the recurring grid failure, the process of restoring power is ongoing with some sections of the national network. the grid is now energized and supply restored to consumers,” Sanusi said in the statement.
It said the system operator was restoring the grid as other grid-connected power plants were sent in to cover lost generating capacity from the Calabar power station, owned by Niger Power Holding Company Ltd.