Residents and businesses in parts of Suleja and neighbouring communities are expected to experience a brief interruption in electricity supply on Saturday as the Transmission Company of Nigeria carries out preventive maintenance on its transmission infrastructure.

The planned exercise, scheduled for September 26, will affect customers supplied by the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company in Suleja Township, FCT College of Education, Field Base, Zuba, Sabon Wuse and surrounding areas.

According to TCN, the interruption will occur between 1pm and 4pm, although the actual loss of electricity supply is expected to last for only about 20 minutes. The maintenance involves the Gwarinpa–Suleja 132/33kV Line 2 bay switchgear and associated equipment.

TCN explained that the brief outage is necessary to allow engineers to safely transfer electricity load from Gwarinpa–Suleja Line 2 to Kubwa–Suleja Line 1 before carrying out the maintenance work.

“The interruption is to enable the transfer of load from Gwarinpa–Suleja Line 2 to Kubwa–Suleja Line 1 to facilitate the maintenance exercise without a prolonged outage,” the company said.
The transmission company said the arrangement was designed to prevent the maintenance work from resulting in a lengthy disruption for electricity consumers in the affected locations.

The exercise is part of TCN’s annual preventive maintenance programme, which the company says is aimed at sustaining the reliability of the transmission network and reducing the likelihood of equipment-related failures.

TCN also apologised to consumers who may be affected by the temporary interruption.For residents in the affected communities, the key impact of Saturday’s exercise is therefore expected to be a short power interruption during the load-transfer process rather than a prolonged blackout throughout the maintenance window.