Nigeria’s power generation plunges to 2,649.9MW after fire incident
Electricity generation in Nigeria fell by 37 percent in 24 hours, worsening outages in Africa’s biggest economy amid rising cost of fuelling petrol-powered generators used by many homes.
The country’s generation tumbled to 2.649.9 megawatts as of 6am on Thursday from 4,207.05MW in the previous day, data from the Nigerian Electricity System Operator show.
Yola Electricity Distribution Company, one of the power distributors in the country, said on Thursday that “there has been a remarkable decline in our allocation from the national grid”.
“This has adversely affected what we are able to supply to our customers,” the firm said on Twitter.
Markets Reporters had earlier reported that several parts of Lagos had been thrown into total darkness for hours following the tripping from Ikeja West Grid and fire incident at Alagbon Transmission Substation.
“The outage you are currently experiencing is due to the tripping from Ikeja West Grid. Akangba, Alausa, Ogba, Isolo and Ayobo TS are still out,” Ikeja Electric said on Thursday. “Kindly bear with us as gradual restoration is ongoing. Thank you for your understanding.”
The Transmission Company of Nigeria also announced that there was a fire incident on Wednesday evening at its Alagbon Transmission Substation, which affected one of its 60MVA power transformers in the substation.
According to the company, the operator on duty heard a heavy bang from the switchyard and immediately moved to the switchyard to investigate the sound and found fire under the cooling fans/fins of the transformer.
It said, “Frantic efforts were made to put out the fire with the fire extinguisher in the substation, but oil, which started dripping from the transformer, ignited the fire more.
“The engineer then switched off power supply in the substation on the 300MVA 330/132/33KV transformer and also made calls to the Federal Fire Service in Onikan and the Lagos State Fire Service at Dolphin Estate. The fire was put out at 1735hrs by the fire services.
“From initial assessment, the transformer can be salvaged/repaired, and presently, the situation is under control.
“Normal supply to the station was restored at 1927hrs. All available transformers in the station have been restored. Eko Distribution is on the ground for the management of the affected three no. 33KV feeder, as we have redundancy in the station.
“All customers feeding from Alagbon 330/132/33KV substation will have supply tonight. The situation is under control, and TCN will do a comprehensive check of the affected transformer immediately to enable it to properly assess the transformer for repair work.
“We are truly saddened by this incident, especially as the company had operated from the beginning of this year to- date without any system collapse or major incident such as this.”
