Nigeria’s electricity supply has once again experienced a significant disruption, witnessing a sharp decline in power generation. At the stroke of midnight, the nation’s power output reached its peak at 3,594.60 megawatts (MW), but within hours, it plummeted to a mere 42.7MW.
During noon on Tuesday, only the Delta Power plant managed to maintain 41.00 MW of operational power on the grid, while Afam contributed a meager 1.7 MW. This unfortunate event follows closely on the heels of two previous grid collapses within a span of just over 12 hours, which resulted in widespread power outages across the country.
The precise cause of this latest collapse remains unclear. Adebayo Adelabu, the Minister of Power, had attributed the previous incident to a devastating fire. In a series of tweets on his official account, he linked this development to a fire outbreak on the Kainji/Jebba 330kV line, resulting in a substantial loss of 356.63MW in electricity generation.
Adelabu stated, “At 00:35 Hrs this morning, a fire outbreak with an explosive sound was observed on Kainji/Jebba 330kV line 2 (Cct K2J), and the blue phase CVT & Blue phase line Isolator of Kainji/Jebba 330kV line1 was observed burning. This incident led to a sharp decline in frequency from 50.29Hz to 49.67 Hz at 0:35:06Hrs, with Jebba generation loss of 356.63MW.”
He further explained that Kainji began shedding its load from 451.45 MW at 00:35:07 Hrs until it reached zero power output. “At 00:41 Hrs, the frequency dropped even further from 49.37 Hz to 48.41 Hz, resulting in the system collapse of the grid.”
Adelabu assured the public that efforts were underway to restore the power supply promptly. The fire had been successfully contained, with over half of the affected connections already restored, and the rest would follow suit shortly. He expressed gratitude to those who had responded and offered their concern through various channels and commended the team of engineers for their swift response to the situation.
He concluded, ” Let’s get the restoration work completed as soon as possible.”
