ISLAMABAD, Jan 10 (APP): Minister for Power Division Omar Ayub Khan on Sunday said national wide power outage caused due to developing technical fault at Guddu Power Plant at 11.41 pm on Saturday night adding that most parts of the country have already been energized.
Addressing a press conference along with Minister for Information and Broadcasting Syed Shibli Faraz, he said initial fault occurred at Guddu power station at 2341 hours, dropping the frequency to zero. It tripped within a second, causing a cascading effect and all power houses tripped, one after the other, he said.
He said the fault caused the country’s high transmission lines to trip, which in turn caused the system frequency to drop from 50 Hertz to 0 Hertz in less than a second.
Soon after developing the fault, the safety system started work to shutting down the power plants which resulted 10,300 MW out of the system, he said.
He said from North to South, Tarbela and Mangla power stations witnessed shut down. However, he said it took few hours to restore the system back.
The minister said he has personally supervised the restoration work at National Power Control Centre. Technical teams were sent to identify the fault but were facing problems due to dense fog, he added.
Omar Ayub said that no investment was made on up-gradation of transmission lines in past. The government has invested over Rs 49 billion on up-gradation of the transmission lines in last 2 years adding that more investment was being done, he added.
He said owing to the huge investment in last two years, the transmission lines could transmit over 23000 MW in last summer for the first time.
Anti-fog conductors were installed besides washing of the transmission lines, he said.
He said no breakdown was reported during the last two and half years due to the steps taken for up-gradation of the transmission system.
The minister said that Lahore to Mitari Transmission line costing $ 1.6 billion would be ready in March and April. Investment was also being carried out on up-gradation of 220 kV and 132 kV transmission lines, he said.
Similarly, re-conducting of other transmission lines were also under-progress adding that a spare transmission line would be available with us, he said.
Giving the details of the power outages, the minister said as many as eight major outages occurred since 2013 in the country. .
Responding to a question, the minister said sudden frequency variation caused the tripping of the system. Anti-fog insulators were installed on the transmission system during the last two years, he added.
To another query, he said the system has stabilized and inquiry would be ordered to investigate the cause of tripping.
To another question, the minister said the Prime Minister was informed about the tripping incident.
To a question, he said no electricity bill would be collected from the domestic consumers of erstwhile FATA till 2023.
He said an amount of Rs 21 billion was earmarked for Peshawar Electric Supply Company to clear the high losses feeders and control power pilferage.
