The collapse of the national power grid has been linked to a fire incident that occurred on the Kainji-Jebba 330 kilovolt (kV) line.
The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, revealed this information through a series of posts on X. He further explained that the fire outbreak resulted in a significant loss of approximately 356.63 megawatts (MW) of electricity.
This incident marked the first total system collapse of the national power grid in over a year. Adelabu provided updates, stating that the fire had been fully contained, and more than half of the connections had been restored to normal operation. The efforts to repair and stabilize the power grid were ongoing.
He posted on X: “At 00:35 Hrs this morning, fire outbreak with explosion sound was observed on Kainji/Jebba 330kV line 2 (Cct K2J) blue phase CVT & Blue phase line Isolator of Kainji/Jebba 330kV line1 was observed burning. This led to sharp drops in frequency from 50.29 Hz to 49.67 Hz at 0:35:06 Hrs with Jebba generation loss of 356.63 MW.
“Kainji started dropping load from 451.45 MW at 00:35:07 Hrs to zero. At 00:41 Hrs frequency dropped further from 49.37 Hz to 48.41 Hz, then resulted in system collapse of the grid. We are on top of the situation, and speedy restoration is in progress.”
Adelabu explained that there was a deliberate delay in providing updates to prevent potential economic and security saboteurs from exploiting the reported situation.
