Power minister, Adelabu, reveals how fire caused electricity grid collapse

The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, on Thursday, revealed that a fire outbreak led to the collapse of the national electricity grid which caused the nationwide blackout in the country on Thursday.

Ripples Nigeria had earlier reported that the collapse of the grid led to widespread blackout across Nigeria from about 12.40am on Thursday.

Adelabu, who gave details of what led to the development in a Facebook posts on Thursday, explained that a fire outbreak at Kainji/Jebba located in the North-central caused the blackout.

The minister 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.

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“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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