No collapse reported: TCN addresses national grid incident

C Contrary to reports making the rounds, the Transmission Company of Nigeria has declared that the national grid did not collapse on Monday
The General Manager of Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah, announced this in a statement on Tuesday.
Reports surfaced online that the national grid has again caved-in on Monday around 2:47 p.m., leading to a nationwide blackout.
In response to the reports, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) explained that an electrical arcing incident occurred on the Benin-Egbin 330kV isolator, leading to a line trip and subsequent power outage in certain areas at approximately 2:47 p.m. on Monday.
The statement reads, “The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) hereby notes that at about 6:10 p.m. yesterday, 5th August 2024, power supply was restored to areas affected by the arcing on the Benin-Egbin 330kV isolator, which caused line tripping and a consequent loss of supply to some areas. However, contrary to media reports, the incident did not cause a system collapse.
“The line tripping began earlier at about 2:47 p.m. yesterday, with a heavy system surge leading to the arcing of the Benin-Egbin 330kV line isolator fingers at the Egbin Transmission Substation switchyard. This caused tripping at the Egbin Generating Station, leading to the loss of power supply to all of the Egbin Transmission Substation’s outgoing lines.
“This led to an exponential increase in load on the Osogbo-Ihovbor 330kV line 1, with serious arcing of isolator terminals on the Osogbo-Ihovbor 330kV line 1. To prevent the sequence of events from affecting the national grid, the Osogbo-Ihovbor 330kV line was opened to temporarily cut off the flow of electricity on that line.
“At about 2:56 p.m., the Benin-Egbin 330kV line 1 Circuit Breaker also tripped at the Benin Transmission Substation end, resulting in the loss of supply to the Lagos axis, parts of the South West Region, parts of the North Central, and Abuja. Meanwhile, other areas, including the South Eastern region, North East, and other parts of North Central and South West, had full power supply.
“The line tripping was quickly rectified, enabling the grid controller to restore full bulk power supply through the transmission lines at about 6:10 p.m. yesterday,” TCN stated.