Power generation on the national grid collapsed to as low as 10 megawatts on Wednesday afternoon, but rose to 4,123.8MW on Thursday morning after a four-hour intervention by the Transmission Company of Nigeria.
Industry figures sighted on Thursday showed that power on the grid crashed from a peak of 4,270.5MW to 10MW that was recorded on Wednesday.
The grid lost 3,489.1MW, representing 99.71 per cent, but moved up to 4,123.8MW as of 6am on Thursday after TCN engineers worked on the system.
The General Manager, Public Affairs, TCN, Ndidi Mbah, explained on Thursday that the grid was fully restored at 4:59pm on Wednesday after the collapse which occurred at about 12:20pm same day.
She said the collapse was triggered by a sudden drop in system frequency to 47.21Hz.
“Reports received from SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) and other power generating stations showed that at about 12:20pm two generating units tripped in one generating station, while four equally tripped in another generating station,” she said.
This, according to Mbah, caused a loss of 261MW and 350MW respectively, bringing the total loss of electricity on the grid to 611MW.
“It is suspected that the sudden loss of 611MW from the grid caused system instability and its eventual collapse,” she stated
The TCN spokesperson, however, stated that after the collapse, the company’s system operators commenced the restoration of the grid by 12:46pm.
She said power supply in Abuja was fully restored from Shiroro generating station at 1:05pm, adding that the firm equally commenced grid restoration from the Delta power station and at 4:59pm a full restoration of the entire grid was achieved.
Mbah expressed appreciation to the government, electricity customers nationwide, and international customers for their patience.
She added that the TCN would continue to work hard to expand and maintain the stability of the national grid.
