A fire has broken out at the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) facility located in Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State. The immediate cause of the fire remains unknown at this time.
Residents in the vicinity of the TCN facility, situated behind the mechanic village in Birnin Kebbi metropolis, reported hearing a loud bang followed by the emergence of thick flames and smoke from a section of the electric installations around 12:32 am.
The fire continued to rage and was spreading to other nearby facilities. Firefighters had not yet arrived at the scene, as reported by Daily Trust 1am Friday morning.
This incident follows closely on the heels of a fire outbreak on the Kainji/Jebba 330-kilovolt (kV) line, which led to the collapse of the national grid and resulted in a nationwide power outage.
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Adebayo Adelabu, the Minister of Power, disclosed that the fire incident had resulted in a loss of approximately 356.63 megawatts (MW) in power generation.
He stated, “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, and 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.”
He further explained that “Kainji started dropping load from 451.45 MW at 00:35:07Hrs to zero. At 00:41Hrs, the frequency dropped further from 49.37 Hz to 48.41Hz, then resulted in the system collapse of the grid.”