The Transmission Company of Nigeria has given insight into the blackout experiences in some parts of Northern Nigeria.
TCN’s General Manager, Ndidi Mbah said the tripping of its 330 Kilo Volt (KV) Ugwaji–Apir Double Circuit transmission lines 1 and 2 is responsible for the power outages being experienced in the region.
According to Mrs Mbah, the lines tripped off on Monday, October 21, 2024, due to a fault and this resulted in a forced power outage affecting North East, North West and parts of the North Central.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, October 22, 2024, Mr Mbah noted that at approximately 4:53 am, the Ugwuaji–Markurdi 330kV Line 2 tripped off and 243 MW on that line was transferred to Line 1 on the same route.
Three minutes later, Line 1 also tripped off resulting in a total loss of 468 MW.
Mr Mbah said, ”By 5:15 am and 5:17 am, Line 1 and Line 2 were tried, but they all tripped off immediately on the same relay indication.
”Following the tripping incidents on Monday, two teams of linesmen were dispatched.
“One from the Apir Transmission Sub-region and another from the Enugu transmission, to expedite fault tracing along the 215 km route, which includes 245 transmission towers.
“Throughout Monday, the Apir team patrolled the line, navigating challenging terrains in search of the fault, reaching as far as the River Benue.
“They were unable to locate the cause of the tripping and have continued in the fault tracing early this morning,” she said.
She also said that the lines patrol team from Enugu Region of TCN, were unable to commence patrol on Monday, October 21, 2024, due to the ‘sit-at-home’ directive in the South East.
She said that the sit-at-home hindered not only the patrol team operation, but also made it difficult to refuel patrol vehicles for the long distance line tracing.
Mrs Mbah said arrangements were, however, made for security operatives to guide the team, who had commenced fault tracing on Tuesday, October 22, 2024.
”Currently, TCN has restored supply to the 132kV transmission line from New Haven to Apir, but the 330kV lines remain out of service, impacting power supply in the Northern region of the country.
”Sadly, the TCN Shiroro-Mando transmission line is also down due to security reasons, causing power outages in the North,” she said.
According to her, TCN is making every effort to trace the cause of the outage to enable our engineers to effect repairs and restore bulk power supply through both lines.
”We sincerely apologise to the government and electricity consumers in all the affected states and acknowledge that our patrol teams would have continued their search into the night yesterday, if not for the challenging terrain.
”This includes swamps and rivers, as well as insecure areas in the forest. We reconvened very early this morning with security operatives and have continued the fault tracing to locate and address the cause of the line tripping,” she added.
