The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has in a Press release confirmed that it has restored normal bulk power transmission at the APO Substation, after the fire outbreak on Sunday afternoon in Abuja.
The company in a statement signed by General Manager of Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah, states that:
“TCN hereby states that it has restored normal power transmission through its Apo substation after the outbreak of a fire today at about 12:33hours, involving one of its 45MVA 123/22KV power transformers feeding AEDCS 33kV feeders. The fire was put off by the combined effort of the Federal FCT and NNPC fire service. It is however still early for TCN to determine if the burnt transformer can be salvaged.”
Ndidi Mbah stating further about the fire that gutted the APO Substation, explained that the fire resulted from a direct fault from one of Abuja Disco’s 33kv feeders which had a history of incessant tripping’s, the 33kV lacked protection.
“Meanwhile, TCN is equally investigating the possibility of transformer protection failure on its 45MVA. The 33kv feeder H13 circuit breaker and current transformer exploded while the 33kV outgoing transformer snapped causing the fire.
TCN, however, noted that the Apo Substation has N-I redundancy and a such, power supply to all the areas that take supply from the substation through Abuja Electricity Distribution Compay will not be affected by the incident. This is because the maximum load is taken by Abuja Electricity Distribution Compay (AEDC) from the burnt 45mva transformer was 26MW. Meanwhile, maximum load AEDC takes from the old 100sMVA in the substation is 56.5MW while the maximum load from the second 100MVA power transformer installed last year is 30.9=8MW. Both, however, can take at full capacity, a total of 160MW against the 86.5.” he said.
On how they are presently transmitting to meet the demand of AEDC and their customers, Ndidi Mbah said this:
“Presently, TCN it is transmitting normal supply through the 2x100MVA 330/132kV and the second 45MVA 132/33kV power transformers in the substation. The company has equally loaded the 26mw from the burnt transformers into the 100MVA MBH transformer at the substation and is adequately supplying without load reduction.
TCN is also working with the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) to ensure that it now takes the load formally taken from the burnt transformer at the APO Transmission Substation through the MBH 100MVA transformer.
The company apologised for inconveniences to electricity consumers in the affected areas and noted that the issue of protection equipment is one that must be taken very seriously so that the stability of the nation’s network is not compromised.” he said.
See the released statement:
