By The Respondents Reporter
Electricity supply has been fully restored across Tanzania after engineers contained a rare fault that disrupted the national grid, leaving millions of households, businesses and critical services without power for several hours.
The Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO) said the outage was triggered by the simultaneous failure of three transmission lines and one power generation station, an incident that destabilised the country's interconnected electricity network.
Addressing journalists in Dar es Salaam on Saturday, TANESCO Director General Lazaro Twange described the incident as an exceptional technical failure, saying engineers worked through the day and night to restore power to all affected regions, including Zanzibar.
"The national grid functions as one integrated system. A fault in one section can affect the stability of the entire network, causing temporary interruptions in electricity supply," he said.
The blackout brought transport and business activities to a standstill in several parts of the country. Electric-powered services, including the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) and commuter rail operations, were suspended, while water production at treatment plants that rely on grid electricity was also interrupted before services gradually resumed.
Twange said Tanzania's electricity system has become increasingly interconnected as generation capacity expands.
The country currently has an installed capacity of about 4,400 megawatts, supplied by major facilities including the Julius Nyerere Hydropower Project, Kinyerezi gas-fired power plants, Mtwara generation stations and the Kishapu solar power project.
The electricity is transmitted through more than 8,000 kilometres of high-voltage transmission lines linking power plants with consumers nationwide.
He said technical teams were immediately deployed to inspect the affected infrastructure, isolate the fault and restore the system to stable operation.
Although the national grid is equipped with automated protection mechanisms designed to minimise the impact of disturbances, Twange acknowledged that complex failures involving multiple components can still occur.
He said a detailed technical investigation is underway to determine the root cause of the incident and recommend measures to strengthen grid resilience.
"We sincerely apologise to all customers affected by this interruption, including passengers using electric railway services, businesses, institutions and members of the public whose daily activities depended on our services," Twange said.
He added that TANESCO would continue investing in grid modernisation, transmission infrastructure and system protection technologies to improve the reliability of electricity supply as demand continues to grow.
The restoration of power brought relief to households and businesses across the country after one of the most extensive electricity disruptions in recent years, highlighting both the increasing complexity of Tanzania's expanding power network and the importance of continued investment in grid stability.
