THIS is with reference to the news report ‘Outage plunges country into darkness’ (Jan 10). Power breakdowns resulting in a countrywide blackout do happen sometimes, but what is unacceptable is an inordinate delay in restoring the power system. The recent nationwide power breakdown is a case in point, for it took 10 to 18 hours to restore electricity supply across the country.

The power sector’s financial bankruptcy is well known, for the circular debt is now running well into trillions. With this massive power breakdown and unprecedented delay in power restoration, the power ministry’s lack of technical skills as well as those of the National Power Construction Corporation (NPCC), the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC), and the various generation and distribution companies stood exposed.

Pending an honest investigation into the causes of the system’s collapse, one thing is certain that the monitoring and control staff managing the NPCC responsible for safe and optimal power system operation, failed to restore the power system in a relatively shorter time.

At the same time, a single fault anywhere in the power network should not result in cascade tripping of all extra-high-voltage lines and isolation and tripping of almost all the power plants, plunging the whole country into darkness, if the protection gear were in working order.

Only the faulty section should have been disconnected and shut down, leaving the rest of the healthy system to continue supplying power. Such a massive shutdown results in loss of billions of rupees in addition to the great inconvenience to the people at large. A thorough probe into this incident by competent experts is warranted to pinpoint the weak points in the power system operation and their rectification so that such breakdowns do not occur again.

Riaz Bhutta

Lahore

(2)

THIS refers to the sudden power breakdown in Karachi’s DHA area around midnight Jan 10. The power supply was restored only the next day around noon; after 12 long, agonising hours.

During all this while, some of the relevant officials started tweeting about the ‘various’ causes of the outage. It was only much later that the mainstream media reported about what seemed to have gone wrong at Guddu power plant.

What I know is that to counter any power breakdown in the country due to any fault or sabotage, a national power grid was made, linking the entire country, excluding Karachi, because the city has an independent power generation and distribution company; K-Electric.

The national grid has been designed in such a way that even if any grid or power station was shut down, large areas would not plunge into darkness.

Considering this, why the whole country plunged into darkness for more than 12 hours? If there was negligence by some officials or technical fault at Guddu thermal plant, why the change-over to continue transmission through national grid was not possible? This proves decay in our institutions and poor management.

Karachi, which is not linked to the national power grid, has an invisible private mafia messing up with the power generation, transmission and distribution company, which keeps changing its owners from one political party to another.

That a Guddu power plant failure can shut down the K-Electric system is a miracle of the 21st century. Would some responsible authorities like to say something about this? Please?

Ali Ashraf Khan

Karachi

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2021