An accidental fault in the transmission lines caused several power plants to trip resulting in a massive power outage in the country’s southern areas including Karachi.
Minister for Power Division Khurram Dastgir Khan on Thursday said that the government was fully cognizant to the power blackout in Southern parts of the country and assured that it would be fully restored by the evening.
“We are trying to completely restore the system between ‘Maghrib and Isha’,” he said.
The minister said that the fault occurred at 9.16 a.m. in two 500 kV southern transmission lines NK-1 and Jamshroo which caused power suspension in southern areas of the country including Karachi, Quetta, Hyderabad and Sukkur.
“Our first priority was to isolate Karachi from it, and we successfully isolated it by 9:45. 1000 MW which was provided daily to Karachi from the national grid was disconnected but K Electric’s own system was independently operational and was supplying electricity to the port city,” he added.
He said tripping caused temporary shortfall of 8,000 MW in the system and some areas of Multan and Faisalabad also witnessed partial outage. However, he said so far over 4700 MW has been restored to the system in a short time.
He said he along with MD National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) and MD National Power Control Centre (NPCC) was personally supervising the restoration work.
He said power supply has already been fully restored to Sibbi, Quetta Electric, Multan, Faisalabad while partially restored to Sukkur.
Khurram said three teams including reconnection team dealing with the cut-off conductors, the second repair team and the third team, was the inquiry team, which would submit a report to the ministry in four days identifying the cause of the incident. Appropriate action would be taken in light of inquiry report, he added.
He said power restoration to Karachi and Quetta was priority and gradually power supply to other areas was also being restored.
Responding to a question, he said fault occurred simultaneously at NK-1 and Jamshroo transmission lines. However, North of the country remained safe from power outage, he said.
He said 1000 MW electricity was suspended to Karachi from the national grid which would be restored once tripped power plants fully resumed electricity generation as such plants took some time to come on line.
