The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has restored normal bulk transmission of electricity to its Apo transmission substation after fire destroyed one of its 45MVA 132/33kV power transformers on Sunday.
The burnt 45MVA 132/33kv power transformer feeds electricity to Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) 33kV feeders.
The General Manager, Public Affairs of the TCN, Mrs. Ndidi Mbah, said in a statement on Monday that the fire was put off by the combined efforts of the Federal, Abuja and NNPC fire service units.
Mbah explained that the fire resulted from a direct fault from one of AEDC’s 33kV feeders which had a history of incessant tripping and that the 33kV lacked protection.
According to her, the TCN is investigating the possibility of transformer protection failure on its 45MVA power transformer.
“The 33kV feeder H13 circuit breaker and current transformer exploded while the 33kV outgoing transformer snapped causing the fire,’’ she said.
She, however, said the Apo transmission substation has N-I redundancy and as such, power supply to all the areas that take supply from the substation through AEDC would not be affected by the incident.
She said TCN was presently transmitting normal supply through the 2x100MVA 330/132kV and the second 45MVA 132/33kv power transformers in the substation.
According to her, the company has loaded the 26MW from the burnt transformer into the 100MVA MBH transformer at the substation and is adequately supplying AEDC without load reduction.
Mbah said TCN was working with AEDC to ensure that it now takes the load through the MBH 100MVA transformer instead of the burnt transformer.
GIK/APA