Blackout In Northern Nigeria As Ugwuaji 330kv Line Trips Off

A major power outage has hit the North East, North West, and parts of the North Central regions following the tripping of the 330kV Ugwuaji–Apir Double Circuit transmission lines.

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) in a statement issued by its General Manager, Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah in Abuja on Tuesday, said its 330kV Ugwaji–Apir Double Circuit transmission lines1&2, tripped due to a fault, resulting in a forced power outage affecting the North East, North West and parts of North Central.

The company stated that at approximately 4:53am, the Ugwuaji–Markurdi 330kV Line 2 tripped and 243 MW on that line was transferred to Line 1 on the same route.

It added that at 4:58 am, Line 1 also tripped, resulting in a total loss of 468 MW, saying that 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. They 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 October 21st and 22nd, 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’’, the company said.

TCN stated that it had restored supply to the 132kV transmission line from New Haven to Apir, adding that the 330kV lines remain out of service, impacting power supply in the Northern region of the country.

“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 a power outage 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’’, the statement said.