- Airport, Seaports others in total darkness for 44 minutes
The Nigeria’ National Power Transmission System also known as the national grid on Tuesday suffered another collapse, throwing the entire Lagos (commercial capital) and other parts of the country in total blackout.
The total darkeness, according to a report by the Lagos-based New Telegraph newspaper, boyed by the collapse which occured around 11:00 am (West Africa Time) on Tuesday, affected supply to the Airport, Seaports and other mega businesses in the Nigeria’s commercial capital and across the nation.
The two power utility firms in Lagos; Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC) and Ikeja Electric, confirmed the collapse, according to a report by Lagos-based New Telegraph Newspaper, adding that the grid was restored by 12:44 pm. The restoration was found out to be partial as many parts of Lagos still experineced darkness as at the 6pm on the same day.
Spokesperson for EKEDC, Mr. Godwin idemudia, told the newspaper that his company had given update on the collapse to its customers.
“We experienced blackout on our network at around 11 am on Tuesday, June 3, 2020 due to System coollapse of the grid. We, as a responsible organisation, are duty bound to inform our customers on the cause of the blackout and we have done this through a message to them.
“The incident lasted for about 1 hour but as I speak with you (around 6:35 pm) we are yet to be fully back but some of our networks like Alagbon station have started to receive loads,” he said.
Before this, the EKEDC had in a tweet pleaded for its customers to hear with the disruptions in supply to their homes and businesses.
“Dear customer, We experienced a system collapse from the National grid earlier today. Our team have started receiving supply in parts into our network and hope to have the entire network fully functional in the next couple of hours. Please bear with us,” the tweet read.
This was corroborated by the Ikeja Electric, which also experience the blackout buoyed by the system collapse on its network.
Spokesman for the utility firm, Mr. Felix Ofolue, however, told New telegraph in a telephone chat that he has been duly informed by his company’s technical team that the grid has been restored at around 12:44 pm on Tuesday.
“The system collapse, we were informed by our technical team, occured around 11:00 am and by the timenit was 12:44 pm, we received another message that it had been restored,” he said.
The Nigerian national grid, it would be recalled, experienced its first collapse for 2020 on Thursday, 16 January, leading to blackouts across the country.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) confirmed the incident in a statement on its Twitter page reporting a “system disturbance” which occurred at about 12.34 pm local time affecting some parts of the country.
Later on the same day, at 1:10 pm, TCN noted that “supply was restored to Abuja and most parts of the affected areas”, ensuring that the company is currently working to completely restore and stabilise the nation’s grid.
When contacted Ndidi Mba , General Manager of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) confirmed this even though she is yet to provide details of what led to the collapse.
The TCN which manages the grid did respond to request to provide clarifications but some power distribution companies confirmed that they did not receive generation between 11 am and 2pm.
According to data from the Nigerian Electricity System Operator, an arm of the TCN, at around 6 am 2,774MW of electricity was generated and distributed before the grid collapse
Nigeria’s unstable power grid collapses when there is too little or too much generation and sometimes, inclement weather or disruption to its stations has led to collapse in the past.
Power generation companies could produce over 12,000MW but the most they can generate is around 5,000mw due to difficulties getting gas supply.
Culled from New Telegraph
