Nigeria experienced a national grid shutdown on Thursday due to a fire breakout, according to Minister of Power Adebayo Adelabu.
Nigeria’s energy grid completely collapsed early on Thursday morning, causing massive blackouts over the entire nation.
According to reports, the grid completely shut down at 12:40 a.m., severely disrupting the nation’s power distribution system.
However, the minister provided specifics about what caused the event in a Facebook post on Thursday.
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He said the blackout was brought on by a fire outbreak at Kainji/Jebba, which is located in the North-central.
Adelabu said, “At 00:35Hrs this morning, a 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 line 1 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.
“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.”
