The Transmission Company of Nigeria on Monday said it had restored power supply to Kebbi and Sokoto states as well as Niamey in Niger Republic on a temporary basis.
It said it had constructed a bypass for the transmission towers that collapsed as a result of heavy rainstorm on May 25, which disrupted electricity supply to the aforementioned places.
The General Manager, Public Affairs, TCN, Mr. Dave Ifabiyi, said the transmission line bypass, which was successfully completed and energised on June 18, would serve as a temporary source of power supply to the affected areas pending the completion of four new transmission towers currently being erected.
Ifabiyi, in a statement, said the temporary bypass that bridged the affected portion of the 330kV transmission line from Kainji in Niger State to Birinin Kebbi in Kebbi State was wheeling 103 megawatts of electricity out of which 60MW was allotted to Niamey, Niger Republic.
“The speedy construction of the temporary transmission line bypass was informed by the urgent need to restore power supply to the affected customers, whose socio-economic activities were negatively impacted by outage caused by the incident,” he said.
According to the statement, the contract for the re-construction of the damaged towers has already been awarded to a contractor, who has mobilised to site and commenced work on the new towers.
Ifabiyi said reconstruction work would be completed by the end of July and explained that the bypass, which involved the erection of poles and stringing of the 330kV transmission lines, was successfully carried out through effective collaboration between TCN and NIGELEC engineers from Niger Republic.