Fuel thieves caused inferno, collapse of high tension towers – TCN

The Transmission Company of Nigeria has said Friday’s inferno in Lagos that led to the collapse of five high tension towers was caused by petroleum products pipeline vandals.

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The inferno occurred at a vandalised pipeline on Isheri Olofin, off Igbando-LASU Expressway and it caused massive damage to the 330KV Ikeja-West Akangba Transmission Line 1.

TCN’s spokesperson, Ndidi Mbah, stated in Abuja that the inferno burned off a large portion of the electricity conductor.

She stated also that the inferno triggered a resistant pull on the high-tension towers along the line route, causing five of them to collapse.

“The incident which is estimated to have occurred at about 12.29 a.m. on Friday, burnt a wide portion of the 330kv transmission line which wheels 145mw of bulk power to the Akangba Substation.

“The transmission towers affected are the two closest to the site of the inferno and three across the Lagos Canal.

“As a result of the incident, there is a major reduction of bulk power wheeled to TCN’s 330/132/33kV Akangba Transmission Substation in Lagos,’’ she stated.

The substation takes supply from two different 330kv transmission lines, with the second being the redundant line, she added.

Mbah stated also that TCN would rearrange bulk electricity transmitted on that line route to the second 330kv line previously carrying 59mw.

She added that TCN was successfully back-feeding the substations affected by the towers’ collapse, while engineers were patrolling the second 330kv transmission line which tripped as a result of the incident.

This, she explained, was to ensure it had no fault before it is energised.

“Once it is energised, supply will be restored to all the substations affected by the incident from the second 330kv transmission line.

“Load carried by the burnt 330kv line will now be transferred to the second line,’’ she also explained.

Mbah lamented that an incident such as this was a major setback to TCN’s efforts at implementing grid expansion and stability under its Electricity Grid Maintenance, Expansion and Rehabilitation Programme.

Meanwhile TCN has reportedly restored power supply to areas affected by the early morning explosion, which brought down its five 33KV Towers through the activities of vandals in the Isheri area of Lagos.

The TCN Managing Director, Mr Sule Abdulaziz, made this known during his visit to the site of the incident on Friday evening in Lagos.

Abdulaziz said that TCN had energized the second 330KV Akangba-Ikeja West line, which before the fire incident, served as a redundant line in that axis, in keeping with TCN’s N-1 reliability criteria.

“The second 330KV line which tripled during the incident was patrolled by TCN engineers and certified okay before it was energised.

“The line II was energised at about 2.38 p.m on Friday and now wheels 121MW to the Akangba Transmission Substation.

“This means that areas under Ikeja Disco, whose supplies were affected by the pipeline fire incident, will now have a normal supply of electricity,” he said.

In view of the importance of transmission line redundancy, Abdulaziz said that TCN had already directed two contractors to mobilise to the site and commence the reconstruction of the towers and 330KV line on Monday