The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) announced that it has restored power to the national grid following a “temporary disturbance” on Saturday, October 19, 2024. This marked the third grid collapse in just one week, leaving many states without power.
The incident occurred at approximately 8:16 am when power generation dropped to 0MW, leading to widespread blackouts across the country. The disturbance came just four days after a previous grid failure on Monday, which had only just been restored.
Before the collapse, power generation was recorded at 3,968MW at 7 am, but by 9 am, generation had plummeted to 47MW, and power distribution companies were left with 0.00MW of allocated power.
According to data from the Nigerian System Operator’s portal (niggrid.org), all 22 power generation companies were offline during the incident.
In response to the collapse, Ndidi Mbah, General Manager of Public Affairs at TCN, explained that the issue was caused by an explosion in the bus section of a current transformer at the 330kV Jebba Transmission Substation. The protection system at the substation activated to prevent further damage, resulting in the temporary shutdown of the grid.
Mbah further noted that TCN engineers acted quickly to isolate the faulty transformer, reconfigure the busbar arrangement, and restore power supply to the affected areas of the grid.
“Our engineers at Jebba have successfully carried out the necessary switchings and have restored power supply to the station and other parts of the grid,” Mbah stated.