Florence Sadiku
THE Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has said that its 330kV Ugwaji–Apir Double Circuit transmission lines 1&2, tripped due to a fault, resulting in a forced power outage affecting the North-East, North-West and parts of North Central.
According to Ndidi Mbah, General Manager, Public Affairs of the company, at approximately 4:53 am, the Ugwuaji–Markurdi 330kV Line 2 tripped, and 243 MW on that line was transferred to Line 1 on the same route. At 4:58 am, Line 1 also tripped, resulting in a total loss of 468 MW. By around 5:15 am and 5:17 am Line 1 and Line 2 were tried, but they all tripped immediately on the same relay indication.
“Following the tripping incidents yesterday, 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 yesterday, the Apir team patrolled the line, navigating challenging terrains in search of the fault, reaching as far as the River Benue.”
Ndidi Mbah says in a statement that despite these efforts, these teams were unable to locate the cause of the tripping and continued in the fault tracing early this morning.
Meanwhile, the lines patrol team from the Enugu Region of TCN were unable to commence lines patrol yesterday due to the ‘sit-at-home’ directive in the South-East for 21 and 22 October 2024. This hindered not only the patrol team but also made it difficult to refuel patrol vehicles for the long-distance line trace. Arrangements were, however, made for security operatives to guide the team, who have commenced fault tracing this morning.
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.
“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 apologize 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, which 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”, Ndidi Mbah further stated.
Eighteen-Eleven Media