Energy Minister forms special probe team into National Grid failure  

DAR ES SALAAM: Minister for Energy, Deogratius Ndejembi, has formed a special investigation team to establish the exact cause of the National Grid failure that led to a nationwide power outage, stressing that the objective is not only to determine what happened but also to ensure such an incident does not happen again.

Speaking after visiting TANESCO offices in Ubungo, Dar es Salaam, the Minister said the team will comprise experts from the Ministry of Energy, TANESCO, and security agencies.

Ndejembi said preliminary findings from TANESCO indicate that the outage was not caused by electricity generation but by a fault within the National Grid system, which automatically shut down to protect itself.

He said the government has directed TANESCO to improve the grid system so that future faults in one area do not result in a nationwide blackout, but instead affect only the impacted areas while electricity supply continues elsewhere.

The Minister also directed the acceleration of key electricity transmission infrastructure projects, including the Chalinze–Kinyerezi–Mkuranga transmission line and the 400-kilovolt Chalinze–Dodoma line, saying these projects will increase the grid’s capacity to handle higher electricity loads and improve the stability of the national power system.

He further explained that when the National Grid shuts down, power generation plants automatically switch off to protect themselves from damage, making restoration take longer because the plants must be restarted through a carefully managed technical process.

Ndejembi said the government expects to receive TANESCO’s preliminary investigation report within this week, while a comprehensive investigation continues to identify the root cause of the failure and implement long-term measures to strengthen the National Grid.