The Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) has requested the Federal Government to hold an inquiry to fix responsibility for 6th March KESC system collapse which caused inconvenience to the people and huge losses to the industrial units.
A spokesman of Pepco here on Friday said, "we believe KESC may have intentionally created a scenario to raise hue and cry and to blame Wapda, Pepco, NTDC and the government of Pakistan."
The spokesman said that in press conferences, KESC MD had blamed National Transmission and Dispatch Company NTDC and Pepco for severe power breakdown in Karachi on Thursday.
Clarifying the Pepco/NTDC position, the spokesman categorically stated that Pepco's action to disconnect 260 MW of power on March 06 was not the reason for the subsequent KESC system collapse. "More so, because KESC possesses a 2,200 MW system which can not collapse even if supply to it is reduced by the above level," he added.
He said the factual position is - which can be verified any time - that disconnection of power supply to KESC was undertaken under a well considered and phased procedure with issuance of due prior warnings.
Thereafter, the NTDC's National Power Control Centre had again forewarned KESC of the impending disconnection at 7.00 am which was affected by cutting-off one source at a time out of the available four. The spokesman said, "instead of reducing its load, the KESC operators loaded the left over sources. "The actual load, when one of the four sources viz NKI-Baldia Circuit was disconnected at 8.03 am, was 260 MW which is only 15 percent of the total KESC loading at that time," he pointed out.
The spokesman emphasised that disconnection of such level of load is normal and similar to the situation when a large generating unit goes off-line in any utility. As such, the disconnection of 260 MW cannot ever cause the alleged outage and collapse of the KESC system.
He referred to the sabotage incident of January 1, 2008 at 500 KV Jamshoro NKI Transmission Line due to which KESC abruptly lost 390 MW supply from NTDC and thus came down from the 520 MW pre-sabotage to 130 MW post sabotage level. He said the loss in supply was thus far in excess of the loss of 260 MW supply on March 6 but KESC did not experience total outage and in fact kept operating normally without any noticeable effect. He said, "we believe that such an action by KESC, which can be verified through operational scrutiny of data by the regulator Nepra, raises major questions about the role and conduct of the KESC management in this affair."
Additionally, the spokesman said that even in case of a system collapse on account of KESC's operational mismanagement, inefficiency, lack of contingent planning and backup, the utility should have been able to restore the system in a much shorter time rather then taking a full day.
He said according to experts, including from Nespak and from amongst the previous management of KESC, it is confirmed that in addition to the two IPPs which have the capacity of cold/black start. KESC also gets supply from gas turbine units in the city, Site and Korangi areas, which are capable of cold/black start.
He said in view of this position, the statement of KESC regarding Pepco's responsibility for the collapse and delay in restoration of KESC system is not based on factual position. The system could easily have been prevented from collapse and also restored through the required technical and professional approach. He said this is so, because it is not difficult at all to manage any abrupt removal of a load of about 250-300 MW or so in a system with 1,800-2,200 MW capacity.
The spokesman further suggested that the Ministry of Water and Power may request the regulator Nepra to carry out a detailed minute to minute analysis of the events in KESC operations from 7 am onwards till power supply was restored by Pepco at 9:37 am on March 06 and afterwards till full restoration. He said this probe would surely belie the position taken by the KESC and further prove that Pepco was not responsible for the system collapse or any late restoration of the system.