ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Energy Omar Ayub Khan Sunday said power supply to most parts of the country is restored, following a countrywide power breakdown Saturday night, due to sudden drop of frequency in national grid from 50 to 0, saying an inquiry is launched to determine the cause of the technical fault that caused the power blackout.
Addressing a joint presser with Information Minister Shibli Faraz, the energy minister said he is leading the efforts to restore complete power supply across the country. “There was a fault in Guddu Power Plant due to which, just within a second, frequency in national grid dropped from 50 to 0, and 10000 mega watts slipped out of system causing countrywide power blackout,” the minister said. He said efforts are underway to find out the exact location of the fault and an inquiry is also underway to know the reason of the fault. Guddu Power Plant has three power circuits of five kilowatts, he said. “Pakistan is not the only country that has seen countrywide power blackout. Such happenings take place around the globe. Technical glitches can take place anywhere,” the minister said.
He said the power transmission was between 18000 MW to 18500 MW when Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) was in power which was increased to 23000-24000 MW during the last two years of the present government. “Not a single power tripping incident took place in the last two years. We invested some Rs49 billion in the transmission system,” Khan said. Since 2013 till now, the power breakdown took place eight times, the minister said adding that technical faults in transmission system are the result of outdated transmission system.
Shibli Faraz said in the past, no effort was made to improve transmission system while this government’s focus is to improve the transmission system by upgrading it, he said. Shibli Faraz said power plants were set up in the past but there was no focus to upgrade transmission system. “An outdated transmission is incapable of handling the power load,” he said.
It merits mentioning here that the entire country plunged into darkness on night falling between Saturday and Sunday that led to different speculations. Partial power supply was restored in early hours of Saturday while reports from different parts across the country suggested that power supply was yet to be restored, till the filing of this report Sunday evening.
Meanwhile, The National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) formed a four-member committee to investigate the cause of power breakdown and submit its report within seven days.
According to an office order issued by Muhammad Dilbar Ghouri, Director General Human Resource at NTDC, the committee comprises of senior NTDC officials with Malik Javed Mehmood General Manager North as its Convenor and it includes Ghulam Abbas Memon GM Technical, Atif Mujeed Usmani Chief Engineer and Sajjad Akhtar Chief Engineer as its members. The committee is required to give its report with comprehensive findings/ recommendations within seven days regarding countrywide power blackout that plunged the entire country into darkness on the night falling between Saturday and Sunday.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021