Fire Outbreak at Egbin Plant worsens power supply

05 Feb Fire Outbreak at Egbin Plant worsens power supply

Nigerians who were suffering from load shedding by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) now experience prolonged blackouts following a fire outbreak at Egbin Power Plant in Ikorodu, Lagos State and the resultant shut down of generation by the company.

Egbin Power had, in a statement issued to its stakeholders and the general public yesterday, reported the fire incident at its power plant on Wednesday, February 2, 2022, at about 4.20pm, leading to blackout in Lagos State.

The thermal plant has an installed capacity of 1,320MW consisting of six turbines of 220MW each, while its actual average generating capacity is about 800MW.

Egbin said the fire outbreak was successfully contained by a team of its firefighters in collaboration with firefighters from the Nigeria Gas Company (NGC) in Egbin.

The company said it had set out a process to determine the cause of the fire incident as it had temporarily suspended its operations in line with the plant’s safety procedures.

“Egbin has since activated its emergency response mechanism to determine the cause of the incident, while operations at the plant have been temporarily suspended in line with the plant’s safety procedures. Egbin is also working with the Federal Fire Service, the Federal Ministry of Power and other stakeholders to review the incident,” the management of the power plant said in the statement.

TCN’s spokesperson, Mrs. Ndidi Mba, said yesterday that the Egbin fire had led to the removal of a total of 630MW from the national grid.

Mba said, “We know that there was a fire outbreak and the total generation of 630MW was removed from the grid because of that.

“You know, when a fire outbreak happens, even if it doesn’t affect the entire units, the tendency is that, to protect the other ones, you shut them down.”

“So, as I said, 630mw was removed from the grid on that day (Wednesday).”

Nigeria generates an average of 8,000mw of electricity daily, out of the installed 13,800mw capacity, transmits an average of 5,000mw, while distribution hovers between 3,000 and 2,500mw.

Meanwhile, electricity consumers in Lagos and its environs have recently been witnessing constant power outages.

The two distribution companies serving Lagos – Ikeja Electric (IE) and Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC) -attributed the outages under their networks to a drop in power generation in the country.