Why national grid collapsed for second time in five days, by NISO

Yesterday because a voltage disturbance originated from the Gombe Transmission Substation.

There was a nationwide outage due to grid collapse earlier in the day.

In an update, NISO described the incident as “partial system disturbance on the national grid”.

NISO stated: “The Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO) wishes to state that at approximately 10:48 hours on January 27, 2026, the national grid experienced a voltage disturbance which originated from the Gombe Transmission Substation.”

NISO further stated that the voltage disturbance rapidly propagated across the network, affecting Jebba, Kainji, and subsequently Ayede Transmission Substations.

The incident, said the management, was accompanied by the tripping of some transmission lines and generating units, resulting in a partial system collapse.

“Appropriate corrective actions were immediately implemented to stabilize the system and restore normal operations. Restoration, which began at about 11:11am has since been completed.

“The incident only affected part of the grid therefore not a total collapse as reported by some media organizations,” NISO stated.

NISO said the national grid has been fully restored and electricity supply across the affected areas has since returned to normal.

With this occurrence, the NESI has recorded the second grid collapse in 2026 after recovering from its January 23rd experience.