By Sunday Etuka, Abuja
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has informed that the Labour Union, under the aegis of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) has shut down the national grid, resulting in a nationwide black out.
TCN General Manager, Public Affairs, Mrs. Ndidi Mbah who announced the development in a statement on Monday, disclosed that the national grid shut down occurred at about 2.19am this morning, 3rd June 2024.
Mrs. Mbah explained that at about 1:15am this morning, the Benin Transmission Operator under the Independent System Operations unit of TCN reported that all operators were driven away from the control room and that staff that resisted were beaten while some were wounded in the course of forcing them out of the control room and without any form of control or supervision, the Benin Area Control Center was brought to zero.
She listed other transmission substations that were shut down, by the Labour Union to include the Ganmo, Benin, Ayede, Olorunsogo, Akangba and Osogbo Transmission Substations. Some transmission lines were equally opened due to the ongoing activities of the labour union.
On the power generating side, the GM revealed that the power generating units from different generating stations were forced to shut down some units of their generating plants.
“The Jebba Generating Station was forced to shut down one of its generating units while three others in the same substation subsequently shut down on very high frequency. The sudden forced load cuts led to high frequency and system instability, which eventually shut down the national grid at 2:19am”, she explained.
Mbah reported that “at about 3.23am, however, TCN commenced grid recovery, using the Shiroro Substation to attempt to feed the transmission lines supplying bulk electricity to the Katampe Transmission Substation. The situation is such that the labour Union is still obstructing grid recovery nationwide.
“We will continue to make effort to recover and stabilize the grid to enable the restoration of normal bulk transmission of electricity to distribution load centres nationwide”, she assured.
