Explosion At Kainji Hydro Caused Nationwide Blackout-Power Minister

Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has revealed that the nationwide power outage, occasioned by Thursday's early hour's grid damage in Kainji, North Central Nigeria, resulted from an explosion. 

The minister, who added that the explosion resulted in a fire outbreak, made the disclosure in a tweet. 

“At 00:35Hrs this morning, a fire outbreak with explosion sound was observed on Kainji/Jebba 330kV line 2 (Cct K2J) blue phase CVT & 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 noted that following the elincident, the facility experienced load shedding load which subsequently dropped to zero from its initial 451.45 megawatts. 

“Kainji started dropping load from 451.45 MW at 00:35:07Hrs to zero. At 00:41Hrs frequency dropped further from 49.37 Hz to 48.41Hz then resulted in system collapse of the grid.

Adelabu, who gave no insight into what caused the explosion, assured however, that engineers on ground were on top of the situation, adding the delay in providing updates on the development was deliberate in order not to cause undue panic part of which is to ensure that saboteurs don't take advantage of the situation. 

“We are on top of the situation and speedy restoration is in progress. The fire has been fully arrested and over half of the connections are now up and the rest will be fully restored in no time.

“My sincere appreciation to those who responded or expressed concern via different channels and the team of Engineers for their prompt response to the situation and work done so far. Let’s get the restoration work completed as soon as possible.

“Delay in update was deliberate, so as not to cause panic and to also be able to update on progress of remedial actions taken so far.

“This is to ensure economic and security saboteurs don’t take advantage of every situation reported.”