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Eight power plants shut, zero generation recorded for hours

By on April 2, 2016

Eight of the nation’s power generating plants were completely idle on Thursday, with significant reduction in output from others, including Egbin, which is located in Lagos.

The plants, which did not generate any megawatts of electricity, included Sapele, Delta State, whose installed capacity was put at 240MW; Olorunsogo II in Ogun State, with a capacity of 625MW; Rivers IPP, 180MW and Trans-Amadi, 75MW, both in Rivers State.

Others are Geregu I in Kogi; Afam IV & V in Rivers, A.E.S and Asco, whose installed capacity were not given in the industry data obtained by one of our correspondents.

The drop in power generation has worsened the blackout being experienced in many parts of the country as electricity distribution companies have been rationing supply to consumers.

Sapele’s units were said to have been shut down due to gas constraints, tripping, maintenance and major overhaul, among other reasons.

Rivers IPP’s unit GT1 was out due to gas constraints, while Trans-Amadi’s units GT1 and 4 were out due to line constraints, while the GT2 was out due to gas constraints and GT3 undergoing maintenance.

According to the document, there was no communication on A.E.S, while Asco’s unit GT1 was out due to a fire outbreak. Olorunsogo’s units GT1 to 4 and ST2 were out due to gas constraints, and ST1 due to maintenance.

Geregu’s three units were shut due to outage and for major overhaul and maintenance, while a unit of Afam IV & V was de-commissioned and scrapped, with four others out on blade failure and two due to burnt generator transformer, among others.

Also on Thursday, the power generation system collapsed completely at exactly 12.58pm and lasted for about three hours, during which the nation could not produce a single megawatt of electricity.

Data obtained from the System Operator showed that as a result of the complete collapse, no electricity distribution company in the country received load allocation until around 3pm.

The SO stated that the 11 distribution companies got zero electricity load allocation during the period of the collapse, meaning that for about three hours, no part of the country got power supply from the national grid.

Our correspondents, however, gathered that the supply of electricity was restored around 3pm.

For instance, out of the 450MW that was due the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, it only got about 50MW after the restoration of generation. Before the collapse, the AEDC got an allocation of 257.97MW and the nationwide generation level stood at 2,243.2MW.

 

[Punch]