Fire outbreak at power transmission station in Abuja

There was a fire outbreak at Apo transmission substation in the federal capital territory (FCT) on Sunday.

The substation is being operated by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

In a statement, the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) which feeds directly from the substation said a 45MVA transformer was lost in the inferno.

TCN said the fire resulted from a direct fault from one of Abuja Disco’s 33kV feeders which has a history of incessant tripping.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) fire service assisted in putting off the fire.

It said the Apo Transmission Substation has other transformers and so, power supply to all the areas that take supply from the substation through AEDC will not be affected by the incident.

“Our technical team is right now working with the TCN engineers to see how to absorb the load on the 45MVA transformer that was affected by the fire,” the statement read.

Babatunde Fashola, minister of power, works and housing, was quoted as saying the damages were being assessed.

“I am aware of the Apo Fire incident which occurred today affecting the transmission transformer and our staff are at site and on ground. Fire has been put out. Damages are being assessed and plans underway to redistribute power to communities served by the burnt/damaged transformer at Apo transmission substation,” he reportedly said.

TCN said it is equally investigating possibility of transformer protection failure on its 45MVA power transformer.