Transmission Company of Nigeria Explains Nationwide Collapse In Power Generation

The Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN on Friday released a statement explaining why power generation collapsed to 0 MW on Thursday

It said that the collapse was caused by the tripping of Osogbo/Ihovbor and Ihovbor/Benin 330kV transmission lines, which resulted in loss of 201MW generation from Ihovbor power station. According to the statement, the transmission grid is prone to collapse when power generation is less than 3,500 MW.

Parts of the statement read:

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 System Operator, TCN regrets the inconvenience caused by the collapse.