For the second time in one week, Nigeria’s electricity supply again experienced a severe decline, dropping from a high of 3,594.60 megawatts to an alarming 42.7MW.

The development has caused blackouts across the country, with businesses and residents relying on alternative power sources.

THE WHISTER had last week reported that the grid, operated by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) from Osogbo in Osun State, collapsed on Thursday morning

The grid had gone down to 273 megawatts of electricity coming from two out of the over 27 electricity generation points.

The grid went down at 00:41am, putting some Distribution Companies (DisCos) feeders out.

As of 4:00am last Thursday, five generating plants were on the grid. Afam VI had 0.70MW, Dadinkowa was generating 0.00MW, Ibom Power had 32.90MW, Jebba had 240MW and Olorunsogo was on the grid with zero generation.

The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, had last week said the national grid shutdown was caused by power outage.

He said there was a fire outbreak at the Kainji/Jebba line, that led to a sharp drop in the frequency from 50.29Hz to 49.67 Hz at 0:35:06 hrs. These stations are the key player in the power supply chain.

Adelabu in a statement said, “At 00:35Hrs this morning, a fire outbreak with an 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 48.41 Hz resulting in system collapse of the grid. We are on top of the situation and speedy restoration is in progress.”