The Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN has adduced reasons why the nation’s power grid collapsed to zero Megawatts at about 12:35pm on Thursday, blaming it on the tripping of Osogbo/Ihovbor and Ihovbor/Benin 330kV transmission lines, which resulted in loss of 201MW generation from Ihovbor power station.
The Management of System Operation/Market Operation, SO/MO, of the TCN, in a statement issued yesterday explained further that the ensuing generation and load imbalance, defined by sudden decline in system frequency, culminated in the collapse.
The statement reads, “Total grid generation at collapse inception was 3,196.0MW. The low generation at the time was due to shortage of gas supply to generators.
“The transmission grid is characteristically susceptible to system collapses when generation is below 3,500MW and the available spinning reserve capacity is low.
“TCN is working assiduously to consolidate the gains recorded in system stability, which is evident from the substantial reduction of system collapses from 22 in 2013 to 9 in 2014 followed by 6 in 2015.
“A substantial number of these collapses are attributable to low system generation due to gas supply issues which impacts stability.”
The company recalled that “The improvement in system stability is also evidenced by the fact that TCN has been able to wheel maximum energy of 109,372MWH on 2nd February, 2016 while the peak power transferred on the same day was 5, 074 MW.”
It went on to regret the inconvenience caused Nigerians and the country by the system collapse.
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