The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu has disclosed that the collapse of the national grid on Thursday which resulted in a nationwide blackout was caused by a fire outbreak with an explosion sound.
The Minister in a post via his account on X (formerly Twitter), said the fire outbreak occurred at Kainji/Jebba located in the North-central part of Nigeria.
Recall Naija News had earlier reported the collapse of the national grid in the early hours of Thursday.
Giving an update while assuring that the accident was already receiving due attention, Adelabu added that the reason for the delay in making the news public was so as not to cause panic and confusion.
He appreciated all those who responded or expressed concern as a result of the incident and said the total restoration of power would soon be complete.
He wrote: “At 00:35Hrs 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 50.29Hz to 49.67 Hz at 0:35:06Hrs with Jebba generation loss of 356.63MW.
“Kainji started dropping load from 451.45 MW at 00:35:07Hrs to zero.
“At 00:41Hrs frequency dropped further from 49.37 Hz to 48.41Hz then resulted in system collapse of the grid.”
He added that, “We are on top of the situation and speedy restoration is in progress.
“The fire has been fully arrested and over half of the connections are now up and the rest will be fully restored in no time.
“My sincere appreciation to those who responded or expressed concern via different channels and the team of Engineers for their prompt response to the situation and work done so far. Let’s get the restoration work completed as soon as possible.
“Delay in update was deliberate, so as not to cause panic and to also be able to update on progress of remedial actions taken so far.
“This is to ensure economic and security saboteurs don’t take advantage of every situation reported.”
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