WorldStage Newsonline– The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) on Friday ruled the upgrading of its transmission lines in Kaduna State as the cause of persistent power outages in the city.
A statement by TCN’s General Manager, Public Affairs, Mrs Ndidi Mbah said TCN was not carrying out maintenance work as alleged in some quarters but was upgrading its Mando–Kakuri transmission lines from 80MW to 240MW.
The general manager said the upgrade was to significantly improve power supply to Kaduna and its environs.
According to her, the transmission lines upgrade is carried out only on weekends, the TCN is not responsible for any outage beyond the period.
Mbah said the TCN’s decision to undertake upgrade of the transmission lines on weekends was to reduce inconvenience to electricity customers.
She said the upgrade could cause power supply interruption to only electricity customers in Kaduna South during the weekends for nine hours.
She said doubling of the transformer capacity of Kaduna town transmission station from 120MVA to 240MVA, in line with its grid expansion plan resulted in the upgrade of the lines.
“On completion, there would be increased electricity supply to Kaduna State through the Mando-Kakuri transmission line,’’ she said.
Mbah said the upgrade of the transmission line was the only way the impact of the two additional new 60MVA power transformers could be felt by electricity consumers in Kaduna.
According to her, TCN is committed to the execution of its grid expansion plan, in line with Federal Government’s policy on incremental power.
“The Mando-Kakuri transmission lines upgrade in Kaduna is an integral part of this process and when completed, it will boost power transmission capacity to distribution load centres supplying power to Kaduna South.’’
Meanwhile, TCN said it had installed two 132/33kV power transformers with a 60MVA capacity in Uyo and Kano substations.
Mrs Ndidi Mbah, TCN’s General Manager, who made this known in a statement in Abuja on Friday, said TCN had also energised its Nsukka 30MVA transmission substation completed in 2016.
She said the new 60MVA 132/33kV power transformer in Uyo transmission substation was installed to replace the 60MVA LEEC power transformer, which was gutted by fire in January.
Mbah said the 60MVA power transformer energised on March 22, increased the number of 60MVA power transformers in the substation to three with an increased capacity from 120MVA to 180MVA.
According to her, the additional transformer capacity will result in an improved power supply to customers in Port-Harcourt DisCo, Uyo, Oron, Mbo, Ikot-Ekpene, Abak, Ethan, and environs.
She also said the capacity of Dan Agundi substation in Kano, had also increased from 60MVA to 120MVA.
Mba said the transformer’s installation, which was initially awarded to a contractor was taken over by TCN engineers, with a mandate to complete the installation within two weeks.
Similarly, Mbah said the new Dan Agundi transformer had been delivered and would be energised on March 24, after completing the pre-commissioning tests.
“Once energised, electricity transmission to Kano Electricity Distribution Company for delivery to its customers in Kano would improve substantially,’’ Mbah said.
She noted that the Nsukka 30MVA transmission station in Enugu was energised on March 20.
Mbah said the substation, completed since 2016, was not operational because of right of way issues.
She, however, said the intervention of Gov. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State had resulted in the completion and energising of the transmission line.
This, she said would ensure improved power supply to Nsukka and environs.
