The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) says the national grid has been shut down following the industrial dispute by the two unions in the company.

This was contained in a statement issued on Wednesday by the TCN General Manager, Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah.

Mbah said the grid was shut down by the unions, noting that effort was being made to resolve the issues upon which the action was called.

She stated that the incident occurred at 3:01 p.m. on Wednesday after several 330kV transmission lines and 33 Kilo Volt (kV) feeder lines across the power system network were switched off by the members of the unions.

“This resulted in generation-load imbalance and multiple voltage escalations at critical stations and substations,” she noted.

Mbah added that the development came weeks after the company had come out of a hectic grid management regime, occasioned by the paucity of generation that lingered for a couple of months.

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”Coupled with the stream of interventions by the Ministry of Power and other stakeholders in the Value Chain, grid generation (at Peak) had reached 4,830.69 Megawatts (MW) as of Tuesday,” she said.

Mbah, however, said in spite of the setback, TCN was set to restore the grid as quickly as possible.

The TCN spokesperson disclosed that the Ministries of Power and Labour and Employment were currently meeting with the union officials in order to resolve the issues.

The Star had reported that electricity workers under the aegis of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) embarked on a nationwide strike on Wednesday.

Electricity workers are protesting the non-payment of outstanding arrears owed to former workers of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).

NUEE is also protesting suspension of conditions of service and career path for workers and the directive by the TCN board to conduct promotion interviews for acting principal managers who are moving to Assistant General Managers, among others.

The Star