Blackout: Labour union obstructing national grid recovery, says TCN

The Transmission Company of Nigeria has said the labour union is obstructing the restoration of the national grid.

It said the labour union, which started an indefinite strike on Monday over minimum wage dispute with the government, shut down the power grid, causing blackout nationwide at about 2.19am this morning.

“At about 1:15am this morning, the Benin Transmission Operator under the Independent System Operations unit of TCN reported that all operators were driven away from the control room and that staff that resisted were beaten while some were wounded in the course of forcing them out of the control room and without any form of control or supervision, the Benin Area Control Center was brought to zero,” TCN said.

It said other transmission substations that were shut down by the Labour Union included the Ganmo, Benin, Ayede, Olorunsogo, Akangba and Osogbo Transmission Substations. Some transmission lines were equally opened due to the ongoing activities of the labour union, the company added.

TCN said: “On the power generating side, power generating units from different generating stations were forced to shut down some units of their generating plants, the Jebba Generating Station was forced to shut down one of its generating units while three others in the same substation subsequently shut down on very high frequency. The sudden forced load cuts led to high frequency and system instability, which eventually shut down the national grid at 2:19am.

“At about 3.23am, however, TCN commenced grid recovery, using the Shiroro Substation to attempt to feed the transmission lines supplying bulk electricity to the Katampe Transmission Substation.

“The situation is such that the labour union is still obstructing grid recovery nationwide. We will continue to make effort to recover and stabilise the grid to enable the restoration of normal bulk transmission of electricity to distribution load centres nationwide.”