Nigeria plunged into darkness after national grid shut down

[dropcap]N[/dropcap]igerians are used to the mundane inconvenience of brief, localized power outages that regularly hit the country’s aging electricity grid, but the large blackout that plunged the nation into darkness Tuesday night was unusual.

A Fire incident reported by Gas processing company plunged most parts of the country  into total darkness.

“We urge members of the public to bear with us as we work to overcome this set back which should be temporary, said the ministry of power in a statement obtained by Per Second News.

The ministry of Power said that TCN and GENCOS are working to normalize the situation which left households and businesses without power.

“Regrettably, after a sustained period of increasing production and distribution of power since September 2017 to date, the Nigerian Gas Processing and Transportation Company Ltd (NGPTC) has reported a fire incident on its Escravos Lagos Pipeline System near Okada, Edo State on Tuesday, 2nd January, 2018.

“The incident requires a shutdown of the pipeline supplying gas to Egbin 1,320MW; Olorunsogo NIPP 676MW, Olorunsogo 338MW, Omotosho NIPP 450MW, Omotosho 338 MW and Paras 60MW power stations.

“The sudden loss of generation due to interruption in gas supply from these stations caused the national transmission grid to trip off around 20:20 on 2nd January 2018. The national transmission grid is owned and operated by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

“Most of Nigeria’s power generation is from thermal power stations that require gas for fuel. The gas is produced by oil and gas companies overseen by the Ministry of Petroleum Resources. The gas is delivered to the power stations through pipelines owned and operated by Nigerian Gas Processing and Transportation Company Ltd (NGPTC), a subsidiary of Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).

“TCN and the generation companies are working to restore operation of the national grid. Once the national grid is restored output from the hydroelectric power stations and all other unaffected gas fired thermal power stations will be increased to the extent possible to minimize the impact of loss of generation from the affected power stations while NNPC takes necessary steps to restore gas supply.

“I feel so frustrated, angry and impotent,” said Tony Emordi,  an Enugu based business man on his twitter page.