The Transmission Company of Nigeria says the national grid has been restored after experiencing a temporary disturbance at about 8:15 a.m. on Saturday, the third within a week.

TCN’s General Manager for Public Affairs, Mrs Ndidi Mbah, disclosed this in a statement in Abuja on Saturday.

Mbah said that TCN engineers at Jebba successfully carried out switching by isolating the faulty current transformer.

She stated that the engineers had also reconfigured the busbar arrangement, restoring the power supply to the station and other parts of the grid.

Mbah reported that according to the information from the National Control Centre, the bus section of a current transformer exploded at the 330kV Jebba Transmission Substation.

“As expected, the protection system was activated, which promptly opened the busbars to curtail the explosion, thereby preventing the outbreak of fire and further damage to adjacent equipment.

“The action of the protection system led to a temporary disturbance on the grid,” she explained.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission has also said that the grid collapse was a result of a current transformer explosion.

Giving an update on the collapse in a statement on its social media handles, the NERC said it “Notes with concern the recent escalating incidence of grid disturbances often leading to marked outage in several states thus reversing many of the gains recently achieved in reducing infrastructure deficit and improving grid stability.”

The statement disclosed, “Initial reports on the grid disturbance that occurred this morning indicate that today’s outage was triggered by an explosion of a current transformer at the Jebba transmission station at 0815hrs and an associated cascade of power plants shut down arising from the loss of load.”

The commission stated, however, that efforts to restore supply had advanced “with power significantly restored, as at 1300hrs, in 33 states and the FCT.”

It added, “In line with the provisions of the Electricity Act 2023, the unbundling of the System Operator function (ISO) out of Transmission Company of Nigeria Plc is ongoing with the expectation that an independent System Operator would engender more discipline in grid management and optimised investment in infrastructure.”

In pursuit of finding a permanent resolution to the challenges of the national grid, the commission said it shall shortly conduct an investigative public hearing to identify immediate and remote causes of recurring incidents of grid disturbances and widespread outages.

“The date and venue of the public hearing will shortly be announced in the national dailies and stakeholders are encouraged to participate,” the statement concluded.

Recall that the grid tripped off on Monday and Tuesday when it was being restored.

Power generation was 3,042 megawatts at 8 am and peaked at 3,968MW at 7 am, however, the generation dropped to 47MW as of 9 am.