Politically speaking, the occurrence of outages is inevitable in the power system due to equipment breakdown, equipment maintenance, faults along the network and periods of network expansion and equipment upgrading.

An outage refers to a period of interruption to power supply as a result of the above identified reasons and there are many types of outages, which include Forced, Emergency, Urgent, and Scheduled/Planned outages.

Forced outage is caused by fault either within or outside an equipment. Normal supply is restored after a comprehensive analysis of the nature of fault.

In the case of an Emergency outage, supply is interrupted to an equipment or network to forestall damage and safeguard the public, the equipment and network. This type of outage is often triggered by an observation made within the station of an abnormality or on receipt of a distress call from the public to the control room.  

For Urgent outages, it is implemented after a careful assessment of the situation and often gives room for a short-term plan and notification of critical stakeholders.

The Scheduled/Planned outages are deliberately planned for and the maintenance team is statutorily required to give a fourteen days’ notice before the outage date and is expected to have issued a public notice regarding the proposed job, giving details as to the equipment to be affected; outage duration; alternative (if any) sources of power supply; areas to be affected etc.

It is in light of this requirement that one commends the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) that has released a comprehensive proposed outage plan, which is to carryout preventive maintenance on the bay of its 150MVA 330/132/33kV transformer T1A at Jos TS on 18 and 19 January, 2024 for eight hours daily from 0900-1700hrs.

According to TCN General Manager, Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah, “TCN would transfer the load from T1A to T2A in the same substation”.  She disclosed that the transfer would affect bulk supply during the transfer period only, and not the entire eight-hour period it would take to complete the maintenance exercise on both days. The short outage during the transfer period would affect supply to Gombe and some parts of Adamawa and Bauchi states only, during transfer time on both days. “TCN will, however, restore bulk power supply through the transformer immediately after the maintenance exercise,”Mbah explained.

The above detailed notice by TCN is good for the image of the company and will allow customers to prepare adequately and make alternative arrangements for supply during the outage period. Furthermore, upholding such standard best practices would also be beneficial to the economy and it is expected that other players in the power sector will embrace same because it will definitely be a win-win situation!