Nepra takes notice of widespread power outage in country

ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has taken serious notice of hours-long power outage in KP and Punjab provinces after the National Transmission of Dispatch Company’s (NTDC) northern system tripped on 16th May 2018.

The regulator directed the NTDC to submit a detailed report on the issue. On Wednesday, almost half of the country saw around eight-hour power outage, as a major power breakdown in the country’s transmission system occurred in the morning that left Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Northern Areas without power for almost the whole day.

Nepra in a news statement said that power breakdown resulted in complete blackout in north (i.e. from Guddu – Peshawar) leaving the provinces of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa without electricity. It is pertinent to mention here that earlier on 1st May 2018 the tripping of NTDC’s 220 KV transmission lines affected Chashma nuclear power plant (units 1-4) causing a generation loss of around 2,100 MW in north. The two consecutive power breakdowns within a short span, has once again exposed the fragile stability and reliability of the system. This shows poor state of affairs on the part of NTDC.

The prevailing situation in respect of poor performance of NTDC’s transmission network has been viewed seriously by the Authority and NTDC has been directed to immediately provide a detailed report regarding the unforeseen circumstances which caused wide spread power breakdown.

Yesterday after giving the position of the situation, the Power division said that according to initial reports the 500KV Guddu-Rahim Yar Khan transmission line tripped at 09:28am along with 500KV Guddu-DG Khan transmission line. As a result, the load increased on 500KV Guddu-Muzaffargarh transmission line from 733MW/72 MVAR to 1,559MW/717 MVAR as recorded at the Muzaffargarh end, this line also tripped. This tripping resulted in under frequency on system from 50.18Hz to 48.755Hz within five seconds. Resultantly, the under frequency schemes came in action and the frequency improved from 48.755Hz to 49.43 Hz.

Meanwhile, some other power stations including four units of the Chashma Nuclear Power Plant, also tripped perhaps due to the frequency fluctuation, jerk and cascade tripping which started in the northern part from Guddu to Peshawar. The system went under partial failure from Guddu to Peshawar when frequency plummeted down to 45Hz.