Nationwide outage worsens as fire razes TCN control room

The Transmission Company of Nigeria said on Saturday that a fire incident which occurred at its Afam VI power station in Rivers State had completely destroyed the firm’s protection and control equipment.

The General Manager, Public Affairs of TCN, Mrs. Seun Olagunju, explained in a statement that the fire incident occurred on Wednesday and that the equipment destroyed were located in TCN’s relay and control room.

She said the development had prevented the evacuation of guaranteed 450 megawatts of electricity generated by the station.

Olagunju said the fire incident, which occurred around 6:58 am, completely destroyed the transmission company’s equipment at the power station.

She, however, said the cause of the inferno had yet to be ascertained as of Saturday.

The TCN spokesperson added that the firm’s response team were mobilised to the site of the inferno immediately the incident happened, to isolate the faulty section of the substation.

She said the team was also asked to make an alternative arrangement for the evacuation of power generated by Afam VI station into the grid.

She said, “Presently, the job has been successfully completed and the power station has reconnected to the national grid.”

Olagunju explained that the major cause of the current low power generation was not the fire incident but the vandalism of gas pipelines that resulted in short supply of gas to the thermal power generating stations.

She pledged that TCN would continue to work towards expanding the nation’s transmission grid in line with its expansion plans.

However, our correspondent however, observed on Friday that the power situation in most parts of the Federal Capital Territory was poor as areas that often enjoy an average of 18 hours supply per day did not enjoy electricity up to four hours.