THE Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) at the weekend, disclosed that a leakage on the Escravos-Lagos gas Pipeline had led to the shutdown of four power generating plants last Wednesday.
As a result, it said power generated to the national grid reduced due to emergency maintenance conducted by the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC) on the affected pipeline supplying gas to the power stations.
The affected stations are Egbin, Omotosho, Olorunsogo and Paras Power Stations.
In a statement signed and issued by the General Manager Public Affairs, Mrs Ndidi Mba in Abuja yesterday, TCN said prior to the incident, Omotosho NIPP and Olorunsogo NIPP had already been out due to gas supply issues.
According to the statement, the NGC had repaired the gas pipeline so as to restore normal supply to the affected power plants.
However, the commission said that repairs have been completed and the pipeline is currently being pressurised, prior to the resumption of gas supply to the affected power stations
TCN further noted that it has diverted about 312MW load from the Benin-Egbin 330kV transmission line which tripped at 23.14hours on Tuesday, 23rd April 2019, to Omotosho–Ikeja West and Ayede-Ikeja 330kV transmission lines, due to on-going repair works on the Benin-Egbin 330kV transmission line.
“The tripping was caused by a line cut between Ofofu and Okada Towns, however, TCN engineers are making concerted efforts to complete repair work on the transmission line, despite the very difficult terrain at that location.
“Due to the diversion of the load from this line to the two transmission lines equally feeding Lagos axis, load shedding in Lagos axis was minimised to about 280MW at the first instance. However with the attendant gas supply issues and sudden gas leakage problem, load shedding increased considerably, the statement added.”
To this end, the commission assured that power supply would return to normal as soon as normal gas supply is restored to the affected power stations and transmission repair work is completed.
