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Thursday March 28, 2024

NTDC spins into action to avoid large-scale breakdowns

By Our Correspondent
May 23, 2018

LAHORE: The National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) on Tuesday announced to take steps for further islanding options in northern and southern systems to protect electrical hardware and prevent tripping that, in most cases, was the main cause of large-scale power breakdowns.

An NTDC statement said a decision to this effect was taken by the company’s board of directors, who met to discuss a recent transmission system failure, which the company said was due to a fault in Guddu power plant switchyard. The breakdown had plunged parts of northern areas in darkness recently.

“The BOD expressed its firm commitment to revamp and revitalise the vital transmission system of the country and instructed the management to fully investigate, analyse and determine the causes of the failure for adopting mitigating measures to avoid such system collapse in future,” the statement said.

The NTDC said for substantial addition of generation in the system, the board also agreed to engage a consultant to carry out a technical study.

It said the board also expressed its concerns over extrinsic factors, which could cause or aggravate such failures. “They directed the management to take up the issue of supply of adequate stabilising factors by the generating stations and also the availability of black start facility in their system,” the statement said.

It added that another specific concern shown by the board was the lack of well-established communication channel among all the DISCOS, GENCOS, CPPA-G and IPPs, regarding the data sharing and restoration of the system.

“The board directed the management to immediately have a meeting of all the stakeholders to prepare the SOP for handling the emergency situation in future,” it said.

The board, the company said, while reposing its confidence in the management, noted with satisfaction the speedy completion of transmission and grid system projects like Port Qasim 500 kV, Neelum Jhehlum 500 kV and Wind Power evacuations.

“The board also appreciated the management for expediting the completion of delayed projects which have been successfully commissioned within the last eight months and have added to the system capacity and stability,” it said.

The project includes 500 kV New Lahore Grid Station with Transmission Line, 500 kV Rahim Yar Khan with Transmission Line, 220 kV Mansehra Grid Station, 220 kV Lal Sohanra Grid Station with Transmission Line, 220 kV Dera Murad Jamali Grid Station, 220 kV Uch-Sibbi Transmission Line, and 220 kV Gharo-Jhimpir Transmission Line to name a few.

The NTDC said during the meeting the management presented a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the incident, specifically the key system limitation of contingency.

“The board was apprised that the two 500 kV transmission lines tripped on account of fault at Guddu Power House switchyard and resultantly, third line also tripped as it could not sustain the load of other two transmission lines,” the company said. It added that as a result, the system was split in two regions i.e. North and South and under frequency relays installed in the Northern system isolated around 2800 MW load to stabilise the system. “In the meantime loss of additional generation in the North lead to collapse of the system and there was no further capacity available in the system to isolate an equivalent load,” the NTDC said.

The board directed the management to keep all the NTDC teams on high alert and to take all precautionary measures to deal with any situation to ensure steady supply to the consumers round the year.