By Anzal Amin
ISLAMABAD: The National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) on Thursday constituted a high-level inquiry committee to ascertain facts pertaining to the power outage impacting southern areas of the country.
According to the notification issued by the National Transmission and Despatch Company Limited (NTDC), the committee will be headed by Muhammad Mustafa — Lahore general manager (technical) — and comprise Anwar Ahmed Khan, Muhammad Ijaz Khan, and Muhammad Zakar.
It stated that the committee will be required to determine the root cause of the default, ascertain if the faults leading to the blackout could have been prevented, verify if measures taken by concerned departments were adequate and fix responsibility on the person(s) involved in case any negligence is observed.
The committee will be required to submit a report within four days, the notification added. A major power breakdown was reported in southern parts of Pakistan, including Karachi, with Ministry of Energy attributing the major power breakdown to an “accidental fault” in the transmission system.
“Multiple power plants in south are tripping due to an accidental fault in the country’s southern transmission system, disrupting the supply of electricity to the country’s southern part,” the energy ministry said in a tweet.
However, later, the Ministry of Energy claimed Power was “fully restored” across the country after a major 12-hour power breakdown took place on Thursday — amounting to 8,000 megawatts, according to the energy minister — depriving large swathes of the country, including provincial capitals Karachi and Lahore, of electricity.
The ministry said the disturbance in two 500kv lines in the south of Karachi was resolved. “Electricity supply is being increased from alternative power plants, which will return to normal by Friday morning,” the ministry tweeted.
Earlier, K-Electric spokesperson Imran Rana – in a Tweet – noted that the utility had received reports of multiple outages from different parts of Karachi. “We are investigating the issue and will keep this space posted,” he said.
Later, he confirmed that the suspension in electricity supply was due to a fault in the southern transmission system. He added that work had been started to restore the supply and the complete restoration would take around five hours.
At a press conference earlier in the day, Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir shared the preliminary findings of the circumstances that led to the breakdown.
“This morning at 9:16am, our two 500kv lines in the south — Karachi — there was a fault in both of them. I am not calling it an accident yet, because an inquiry has yet to be conducted there was a fault in them and they fell, as a result, the country’s southern region saw an electricity blackout.
“Our first priority was to isolate Karachi from it, and we were successful in doing so and we isolated Karachi from it by 9:45. By isolate, I mean that the 1,000MW that we provide to Karachi daily, was cut. But KE’s system is independently operated and is supplying electricity to [parts of] the city.”
He said as a result of the two power lines in which the fault developed, parts of Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur and Quetta, and partially in Multan and Faisalabad experienced power breakdowns.
Dastgir added that he was personally monitoring the progress of the restoration. “As a result of this breakdown, a large part of our power plants are out of our system, around 8,000MW, of which we have restored 4,700MW,” he said.
“Electricity has been completely restored in Multan and Faisalabad. There is an issue in Hyderabad, but we have restored Sepco partially till Dadu. There is also [power] connectivity in Shikarpur, and because of partial connections in Sukkur. Qesco has been restored till Sibi.”
The minister said three teams were in the field: one was the reconnection team dealing with the cut-off conductors, the second team was for repairs, wherever needed, and the third team, was the inquiry team, which would submit a report to the ministry of energy in four days identifying the cause of the incident.
“Our biggest success is that we prevented a breakdown in the north. We limited the shutdown to the south through timely reconnection the north was completely saved from the shutdown. “We are trying to completely restore the system between maghrib and isha,” he said.
“It is taking time. The power plants that were shut down will take hours to restart. These include coal plants, Thar coal plants and nuclear plants in Karachi, wherever there has been tripping, plants are being restarted according to their technical specifications.
“We expect that those plants will start production in the next few hours, and as I said, we will completely restore the system between 7-8pm. Our priorities at present are [the restoration of power in] Karachi and Quetta and then Hyderabad too.”
He said the tripping developed near Karachi and moved northward. “There are two lines in Karachi’s south — NK1 and Jamshoro — there was a fault in them simultaneously.
He, however, insisted that there was no fault in the system in Karachi, only the transmission of 1,000MW from the national grid had been cut off. “When the plants will be restarted, 1,000MW supply will be restored [to the city].”
The minister hinted that human error could be responsible for the fault, though he wouldn’t confirm it until the inquiry team’s report arrives. “When the inquiry team’s report is received, if we have to take disciplinary action in its light, we will,” he added. “We have to find the actual cause, whether it was an accident or there was another reason.”
