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| Massive power breakdown hits Karachi |
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Thursday, October 23, 2008
By Azeem Samar
KARACHI: The provincial metropolis was hit by a massive power breakdown around mid-day on Wednesday, adding to the woes of people already under stress due to humid weather.
It was probably the first incident of major breakdown — amid recurring and prolonged load-shedding — since a new private corporate management took over the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) in mid-September.
The power breakdown was so widespread that it involved the entire electricity generation, transmission and distribution system of the metropolis. Although, there has been no end or reduction in frequent load-shedding, there was little or no evidence available on the ground to see any substantial steps taken by the new KESC management to improve, upgrade or expand the capacity and working of the overloaded electricity system.
The KESC officials said the power breakdown occurred due to the loss of high-tension transmission lines i.e. both circuits of Jamshoro-KDA link of 220kV of the KESC at around 11 am. KESC spokesman Kashif Effendi said tripping in transmission lines occurred due to Distance Protection Relay, which is a defence mechanism in the electricity transmission system. The fault in the transmission system had a cascading affect and engulfed the entire power generation, transmission and distribution system of the city.
The major causality of the breakdown was Bin Qasim Thermal Power Station (BQTPS) as electricity generation from its six power generation units came to a sudden halt for several hours. The power generation input from different independent power producers in the city and the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP) also stopped.
The KESC spokesman told The News that at around 7:30 pm, except for the unit no 1 of the BQTPS and the unit no 4 of the Korangi Thermal Power Plant, the rest of the indigenous power generation system of the KESC had been brought back to operation.
It would take several days before 80 megawatt power generation from the KANUPP would be restored. While power supply input from IPPs was also restored by Wednesday evening.The spokesman said after 3 pm, power supply to 70 per cent of the affected areas was restored while efforts were under way to restore electricity to the rest of the areas.
Due to major tripping in the transmission system, the shortfall of electricity faced by the KESC increased to 450 megawatts.In the immediate aftermath of the breakdown, electric supply to all major residential and commercial areas and vital installations, including the Karachi Airport, remained suspended for several hours. Around mid-day on Wednesday, there was no power supply at important military installations of Malir Cantonment, including the Combined Military Hospital, that otherwise gets electric supply on priority basis from the KESC system.
Meanwhile, electricity consumers from several areas, including Nazimabad, Gulistan-e-Jauhar, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Malir and Saddar have complained about hours’ long power outage since late Tuesday night.
Residents of Afnan Arcade in Gulistan-e-Jauhar said power supply to their residential area was disrupted at 3 o’clock late on Tuesday night and had not been restored even after 14 hours.The power breakdown on such a massive scale occurred only a day after the newly-appointed chief executive officer of the KESC and its new corporate owners appeared on different TV channels and reiterated their claims that they would turnaround the power utility.
Meanwhile, the Consumer Association of Pakistan has demanded that notification for raise in the electricity tariff for domestic, commercial and industrial consumers should be withdrawn immediately and revised bills with old electricity rates should be issued to aggrieved consumers.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
