Power breakdown again hits Punjab

ISLAMABAD: The feeble transmission system on Monday continued to haunt power sector in Punjab resulting in the massive disturbance in supply of electricity leaving the masses at the mercy of hot weather.

On May 16, half of the Pakistan (Punjab, KP and Gilgit-Baltistan) experienced a massive breakdown caused by the tripping of Guddu 747-Raheem Yar Khan transmission line.

The government’s less attention towards up-gradation of transmission and distribution system and eroding the system constraints has now put the government itself in danger zone at a time when only 15 days are left of the incumbent regime. Now on Monday the Gujaranwala-Rawat transmission line got tripped putting people of areas which fall under Gujranwala Electric Power Company (Gepco) and Islamabad Electric Supply Company (Iesco) at the mercy of hot day, the official of Power Division told The News.

This shows that country’s transmission system badly needs up-gradation as it is unable to carry the hike in the load. The system constraints do not allow the transmission lines to carry the electricity load which has soared manifold as the demand has increased over 13 percent.

Meanwhile, NTDC (National Transmission Dispatch Company) in its statement said that due to increased temperature, thermal overload relays in the Auto Transformers Banks (ATBs) detected the abnormality and tripped the transformer banks as the transformers were running at their maximum capacity, saving the system and other equipment from any damage.

The system was saved from untoward situation. However, NTDC protection system did not allow the disturbance to travel all over the country and remained localised to feeding areas of 220KV grid stations of Sangjani, Burhan, Ghakhar, Gujrat and Sialkot.

NTDC engineers restored the system within an hour and power supply was provided to affected areas.

The sources said that Guddu powerhouse has already been identified as a source of problems owing to which a slight jerk causes the tripping of transmission system despite the fact that system is not strong enough to carry the recent hike in the load on account of massive surge in the mercury.

The government has decided to isolate the switchyard of Guddu power plants from the system to avoid the massive power breakdown in the country. The switchyard will be separated in such a way if any fault, it could bypass the whole system and resultantly it would avoid the massive breakdown. But all this is to be done and on ground people continue to suffer on account of vulnerable and fragile transmission system.