TCN Not Responsible for Consumer Outages- Management

The Transmission Company of Nigeria ( TCN ) has dismissed insinuations in the public space which suggests that its inadequacy or challenges are responsible for the localised outages and load shedding being experienced around the Federal Capital Territory in the last few days.
The reaction is contained in a statement signed by the company’s General Manager, Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah which was released Thursday.
“For the purpose of clarification, TCN does not distribute electricity to electricity consumers and cannot also switch off consumer feeders. Its jurisdiction on the network is from 330 kilovolt (kV) to 132kV power lines. The company cannot switch off consumers feeders as it is not within TCN’s jurisdiction.
The company explained that it currently has 8100MW capacity and working consistently hard to expand the grid further and added that it’s role is “the pivotal role of evacuating power from Generation Companies (GenCos) to the Distribution Companies (DisCos) nationwide.”

“The fact is that electricity cannot be stored; therefore, power generation, transmission and distribution occur simultaneously. What determines what is put on the grid, is what the distribution companies are ready to off-take, this equally regulates what the generator would generate, which is why the DisCos are required to nominate what they would off-take a day ahead.
Reacting directly to some of the issues earlier raised by the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), the transmission company says ,”Under Abuja Region of TCN, Gwagwalade-Karu line does not exist as has been mentioned in some quarters. There is no direct link between Gwagwalada and Karu Transmission Substation.

“On the Gwagwalada – Apo line however, there is a tee-off on the line which feeds Kukwaba Transmission Substation through Apo Transmission Substation. TCN does not have any problem at its Kukwaba or Apo Substation that would require cutting supply to any of Abuja DisCo feeders.

“Electricity customers are connected directly on 33kV lines which TCN operators have no control over, except during extreme emergency requiring operations crew to quickly open such feeder to enable maintenance service.

“At the 2x60MVA Karu Transmission Substation, all the feeders are set based on the load demand and nomination presented by AEDC on a daily basis. Journalists who may wish to undertake an on-the-spot inspection to the station, would find that none of the breakers is in bad shape.

“The 20MW Feeder K4 at Karu Substation is never overloaded as insinuated in some quarters. Between the Karu Transmission Substation and the injection substation belonging to Abuja DisCo, there is a line load of over 12MW. Off-taking 12MW through an 11kV Distribution feeder for onward delivery to customers, is the responsibility of AEDC not TCN.
While admitting that “TCN has pockets of challenges as with every other participant in the value chain, it however argued ” but that should not translate to misinformation of the public by anyone who would rather ignore the facts. The company added that, “Each of the 11 DisCos has its own challenges which may necessitate outage in certain places per time”